


All Gates Lead To (Home)

by kyrrhe, ReignStorm



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Cal Leandros - Rob Thurman, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Blond Older Brothers, Cal kinda actually has his shit together, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Daddy Issues, Darcy the Benevolent Overlord, Domestic Avengers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, For the sake of hilarity, Gating, Gen, Keep all hands and feet inside the carpet at all times and just go with it, Kinda, Loki Has Issues, Loki Needs a Hug, Not Thor: The Dark World Compliant, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Deathwish/pre-everything else, Puck meets Loki, Rated for Cal's mouth, The Vigil is not evil here, Things should get explained as we go along, and aftermath, relatively
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-22 10:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 43,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6076683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrrhe/pseuds/kyrrhe, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReignStorm/pseuds/ReignStorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Odin has decreed that Loki's sentence after the invasion of New York is to help fix all the damage he caused. To that end, his magic has been partially sealed, but nothing could be done about his ability to teleport. Thus, SHIELD needs to find a way to keep track of him and keep the trickster where he's supposed to be.</p><p>Cal Leandros is a half-breed whose monster parentage gives him the ability to gate himself anywhere he wants to go. Through the Vigil, the organization that attempts to keep tabs on him and his human brother, SHIELD offers him a babysitting job with all the perks of Stark's money. He might not be the best person to expose Loki to but he's their only option. </p><p>Or- A millennia-old trickster god bearing a grudge meets a monster-exterminator/bartender with vague morals and baggage to rival (or possibly even outshine) his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so my sister is evil. She planted the idea of this in my head when she KNEW I WAS WORKING ON OTHER STUFF. Then she aided and abetted me by helping me brainstorm it and didn't stop me staying up till the early hours of the morning writing it. I only claim 12% of the credit for this.
> 
> At least she had the grace to beta it for me. 
> 
> Enjoy!

For once, the Avengers had been called to assemble and there wasn’t anything burning. No one was dying and nothing was being destroyed. Except, perhaps, Tony’s peace of mind. Every chair in the tower’s common room was occupied. There were the five mortal Avengers, plus that one-eyed Fury and his shadow Hill, Phil because he was the Avengers’ liaison, Pepper because she lived here too—and two gods, one of which Tony would have been quite happy never to see again. Why they had appeared on his roof instead of SHIELD’s headquarters, Tony desperately wanted to know so he could tear the reasoning to shreds. He hadn’t had enough coffee to deal with this kind of bullshit.

The gods were cuffed together and Thor had refused to sit, so Loki’s arm dangled up above his head where he sat on the ottoman, glaring at the floor like he could set it on fire. Tony didn’t doubt that he could. 

Fury steepled his fingers. “So let me get this straight. Your dad on high decided that prison wasn’t a good enough sentence, so he decided to foist Loki off on us as _community service_?”

“Yes.” Thor started to cross his arms then thought better of it. “As the damage to your city would never have happened without Loki’s actions, the Allfather decided it was only fitting that he be of use in its aftermath.”

Tony raised his hand. “I’m all for cleaning up your own messes, but, really, Thor? My tech’s nothing to sneeze at but you’ve got all that weirdo space Viking science. What’s to stop brother dear from doing it all again? Nowhere on my resume does it say ‘maid.’”

Thor pointed to a gold bracelet on Loki’s cuffed wrist. It was engraved with runes, and four black stones, only about the size of the tip of Tony’s pinky and very flat, were spaced evenly around it and glittered faintly whenever Loki’s wrist was moved. “This restraint suppresses my brother’s power. It can only be unlocked by this key, and even then only in small amounts.” He held up a matching gold pendant with what looked for all the world like a shrimpy sun dial. “Of course, even in small amounts, Loki will be able to lift quite a weight and he does possess minor healing abilities—but he cannot get up to too much mischief outside of his service.”

Loki glared harder at the floor. 

“Well,” Bruce said neutrally. 

Tony, same as last time, was still caught up on the idea of magic not being an elaborate con.

“That’s all wonderful,” Fury said, “but I still need it explained why I would even want that miscreant back on my planet.”

“I am afraid, Director Fury, that you do not get much say in this matter. The Allfather has already decreed it.”

Fury’s eye glittered. “And I’m just supposed to take that, am I? This is Earth, not Asgard.”

Thor took a deep breath. “I am aware of that. I understand why this is hard for you. But you must understand that Asgard has ways for Loki to carry out his sentence without your knowledge. By informing you and making you his guardians during his stay, the Allfather is acknowledging your authority on Midgard and your status as a realm in your own right.”

Pepper nodded at Thor in CEO-mode. “Wise move.”

Fury raised an eyebrow at her but didn’t argue. He turned to Tony. “If we’re going to do this, he’s staying here.”

“Excuse me? In my tower? In my _home?_ Uh, I don’t think so, buddy.”

“I’m not asking, Stark. All the Avengers are living here, and your security is slightly—I said _slightly_ ¬—better than that at HQ. If he should try anything, the best resources to deal with it are here.”

Clint scowled fiercely. Natasha leaned over on the loveseat and whispered in his ear. The scowl slowly melted into a thoughtful expression, then the archer looked the trickster god over with a wicked gleam in his eye. Oh boy. Tony began to fear for his laundry, grocery, and cleaning bills. He glanced around the rest of the Avengers. Bruce just grimaced at him and Steve looked resigned. _Dammit._

“Pepper’s not an Avenger,” he said in a last ditch effort.

“Pepper isn’t exactly helpless,” the woman said. “I live with all of you, and own nine Tasers of varied size and voltage. Besides,” she added, patting his knee, “if you’re that worried about me, just make me some tech.” She finished off with her driest, un-amused face—the one he got when he’d stayed up too many nights in a row in the workshop and had just said something so incredibly stupid even a snot-nosed kid could have done better. 

Tony threw up his hands. “Fine, fine! Whatever! It’s just my whole tower but whatever, do what you want with it.” Fury turned to him. “That was not an invitation!”

Thor shuffled. “There…is one more thing I need to mention. Loki possesses the ability to sky-walk—”

“Hold up,” Tony said. “You did not just make a _Star Wars_ reference. You haven’t even _seen_ it.”

Thor frowned at him. “I do not understand your meaning, Man of Iron. My brother’s sky-walking is limited to transporting himself within one realm. He cannot transport himself between stars.”

“I thought you said his magic was suppressed,” Bruce said.

“My brother’s magic was something he acquired through long and careful study. His sky-walking is an inborn talent. The Allfather can no more suppress it than he could a talent for music or combat. This is why we are bound together.” Thor held up their cuffed wrists for emphasis. Loki’s arm dangled from it like a dead thing. “Should Loki sky-walk away, I would be dragged along with, and I could easily bring us back with Mjolnir. However, this is impractical in regards to his service.” Thor pointed to Loki’s other wrist where a silver bracelet, also engraved but with only one, pale green gem on its front, rested. “Asgard’s tinkers have created a tracking beacon that will interface with your technology—” Tony perked at that “—in case he should sky-walk. Have no fear. As I have said, he cannot get off your planet.”

“Oh I’m fearing,” Fury said. “There are plenty of places I don’t want him on the planet. And even with your little flying hammer, you can’t get there instantly. Who knows what he could get up to while we try to reach him?”

Loki actually had the gall to grin slightly at the floor. Tony scowled at him.

If the universe had any justice, the god’s hair would have vaporized. 

Thor was starting to look very pained. “I would rather wish another arrangement could be found. Of course I wish to be of help and I love my brother, but I do not wish to be chained to him day and night.”

“A sentiment I share,” Loki grumbled to the floor, speaking up for the first time since his arrival. “Make no doubt of that.”

Fury rubbed at his forehead, grimacing as he muttered darkly to himself. Hill shifted where she stood behind his chair. 

“Sir, this seems like it would be in the Vigil’s neck of the woods. Perhaps they have a way?”

Clint slouched down in the loveseat. “Ah, come on, not those guys! This is weird enough—don’t make it worse!”

“They’re not that bad,” Phil admonished. “They do good work, and they’re older than SHIELD by centuries.”

“They also chase fairytales for a living,” Clint countered while the Avengers who were not SHIELD agents glanced bemusedly at each other.

“Call up their New York branch,” Fury ordered. 

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

“Sir?” Hill called from the hallway. “The Vigil say they might have someone. Or, rather, they say they _know of_ someone.” 

Nick vacated the living room where Tony and Bruce grilling Thor on just how exactly the tracking bracelet was supposed to synch up to Earth’s GPS. He would have thanked his lucky stars if he believed in anything like luck—experience said good things only happened through careful preparation and hoarding of resources—he’d never thought he’d get a solution to such a uniquely unique situation so soon. 

He took the phone from Hill. “Fury.”

“Hi, Nick,” the voice of the Vigil’s New York branch head cackled through the phone. The woman had to be at least as old as his grandmother: wizened, barely taller than his waist, bones made from iron—he would swear to it. He had never known her to take any bullshit, of any flavor. “Interesting spot you’ve got yourself into.”

“And I hear you have a way out for me. Spill.”

There was hemming and hawing on the other end of the line. “We do have someone with the ability to teleport. We don’t know the full extent of his range as it’s basically impossible to get him to consent to a test, but we have no record of anything ever hindering his ability.”

Nick waited. There was always a catch. 

He could practically see the old lady pursing her lips. “He’s rather volatile.”

Nick rolled his one eye. “Give me five subjects from either of our jurisdictions that isn’t in some manner. What makes this one special?”

“Hmm, prone to excessive violence—though perhaps in his line of work that’s not too far off the beaten track. Still. Dismissive of authority, can’t follow orders worth a damn, has a reckless streak a mile wide. Though usually he can be contained by his brother. Mostly.”

Nick cursed the day Mjolnir had landed in New Mexico. The only thing on his plate before then was the random gifted individual, mutants—which Professor Xavier handled just fine with only occasional aid from SHIELD—and one Tony Stark. Now he had a trickster god he couldn’t conceivably get off-planet, who could teleport anywhere on the planet, and apparently the only person able to watch him adequately was nearly as bad as he was!

But. He had little to no authority over Thor, and he was still only the second-best option—he would have an extended ETA. This guy wouldn’t. 

“I’ll have the office send you the details. Just get me the guy.”

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

There were many things in life that were worth waiting for. Chili cheese dogs. Good porn. Targets to step into range. For your brother to open his eyes, god _damn_ him. These were the things I was willing to wait for. Waiting for damn Vigil agents to get out of our apartment so that I could get on with said porn was not one of them. Especially when it was only ten in the morning. That was just fucking blasphemy. I shouldn’t have to do anything before lunch.

I thunked my head back on the couch and planted my feet on the coffee table. Niko gave my stockinged feet the evil eye—be gone ye foul germs, I glare at thee. I fiddled my toes at him. 

Samuel was still prattling on. “—just a simple watch-and-retrieval detail. Watch the guy’s ass and if he tries to teleport, gate him back. You’ll be working with SHIELD, though, not us.”

Niko transferred his glare to Samuel where he sat in our armchair. “How trustworthy are they?” 

Samuel shrugged. “Think of them as like the Vigil, except the people they track have powers that originate from science.”

“Yeah, ‘cause that makes them real trustworthy,” I griped. 

“The Avengers?” Nik asked. 

Samuel nodded. “They were the ones responsible for most of the clean-up from that alien invasion last year.” I was still hung up on that. Aliens. An honest-to-fuck alien invasion. Like, _War of the Worlds_ alien invasion. Werewolf mafia, totally. Boggles in Central Park and actual trolls under the Brooklyn Bridge, no problem. Aliens on goddamn hovercraft falling from a hole in the sky? Yeah, sorry, excuse me, _what?_ You’d think at least the hole would be familiar, but nope. _Mine_ don’t lead to the other side of the fucking _galaxy._ “They’re also the ones footing most of the bill this time,” Samuel added. 

I could see the gears in Nik’s head turning. Our current apartment wasn’t the shithole we usually got, but it wasn’t what the average New Yorker would exactly call decent either, and the pipes in the kitchen had started to leak all over the linoleum.  
“Ah, no, Nik, no. It’s _babysitting._ We don’t _do_ that anymore! You know this!”

“Stop your whining. How much?” Nik asked Samuel, completely ignoring me. 

Samuel named a figure that was easily double our normal fee. To be paid daily. 

I slouched deeper into the couch and scrubbed at my face, dragging on the skin beneath my eyeballs. Dammit.

“Loki is going to be staying in Avengers Tower for his sentence, so you’ll also be staying there,” Samuel added. “Tony Stark will be covering most of the day-to-day expenses such as food and munitions.”

I paused. 

Stark had nearly as much money as Robin. There was a new model of Glock I’d been eyeing…and I could finally stock up on high-end bullets, maybe a few armor-piercing ones—and grenades, god, you could never have enough of those—not to mention the ludicrous amount of gun oil I could go through…and Stark may be a playboy narcissist but he had nothing on Robin. I _probably_ wouldn’t want to pluck my eyeballs out after two days in close proximity. 

Nik said nothing. The smug bastard.

I flipped him off. 

Nik nodded. “We will be consultants and contractors, not agents. This means that we will not be called on for things outside of this security contract. Anything official must come through you. No exceptions. Also, while we are under contract, we are professionals and will be treated as such.” He glared Samuel down across the coffee table. I rolled my eyes. Nik needed to get over this. Yeah, I was useful, but yeah, I was also a half-breed with royally fucked-up morals. The Vigil, the rest of paien-kind, even our friends—everyone else got this and treated me as such. They might not invite us out for drinks—besides Robin that is—but they knew better than to mess with me either. 

Samuel held up his hands. “I’ve only been your liaison for four years, Niko. I’ve got the drill. Don’t worry. It’s all in the dossier we gave to SHIELD.” Niko nodded and Samuel lowered his hands. 

“When do they need us to start?” Niko asked. 

“As soon as you possibly can.”

Niko thought for a moment. “Have a car come by in five hours. And don’t,” he said, pointing at me. “You never fold your clothes anyway.”

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Tony tapped one last button on the tablet and waited with bated breath. A progress bar inched along, JARVIS flitted through the program’s settings, then a map popped up with a little blinking red dot on the tower. Tony fist-pumped the slightly-less-demonstrative Bruce. “Awesome! The Asgardian space Viking tech had successfully been linked into the satellite GPS network! This calls for a drink.”

“No, Tony,” Pepper said from the breakfast bar that separated the common room from the kitchen area. “It’s only three.”

“It’s the afternoon,” he countered. “And it’s celebratory.”

“No, Tony.” She turned the page of the report she was reading without looking up at him. 

Clint snickered. 

“How about later, Tony,” Bruce placated. “Like after dinner or something. We’ve got guests coming after all.”

“Right. Guests who can teleport. Who are here to watch an alien war criminal who can also teleport. How did this become normal?” Tony asked the room at large. One-eye and his shadow had left, but none of the Avengers had really felt comfortable going off that day so they had all brought some form of work or entertainment to the common room. Thor and Loki hadn’t moved, though after assuring his brother’s stay, Thor had relaxed and they were now sharing the ottoman. He was engrossed in reality TV while Loki had transferred his glare to out the window. 

“Don’t look at me,” Steve said over the newspaper. _Paper_ newspaper. “My life stopped being ‘normal’ years ago.”

_“Excuse me, sir, the Vigil’s car has arrived.”_

Both gods perked. 

“Finally,” Thor said, pushing to his feet. 

“Like you’ve been the only one suffering,” Loki snapped, jumping up before their connected wrists made it uncomfortable. 

People drifted towards the kitchen as they waited for the elevator to arrive. Pepper shifted her stacks of paperwork so that Natasha had a place to set her tea and Tony poured himself his sixth cup of coffee. Bruce was giving him the disapproving doctor look again. He made sure to slurp loudly. 

The elevator dinged and three people stepped into his penthouse. One looked like every other hipster, wannabe rocker: goatee, tattoo that gleamed against his coffee-brown skin, leather jacket. A little crescent scar winked behind his ear when he turned his head. The second guy was taller than the first by about an inch, and had nearly three on the last. Dark blond hair was bound into a short, ordered queue revealing an olive complexion, gray eyes, and a nose that would have made Caesar proud. Despite it being late July, the guy was wearing a trench coat that the two spyssassins were eyeing suspiciously. The short guy had the same gray eyes, but his skin looked like he lived in a basement somewhere and his hair was dark as tar, pulled back into a messy rat tail that allowed strands to dangle around his face. He was dressed in jeans with scuffed combat boots and a scuffed leather jacket that bulged in a manner even Tony recognized from all his previous bodyguards. They both carried well-worn duffel bags slung over their shoulders that clanked strangely. Natasha and Clint were eying those as well. 

They looked as shady as shady could get without creeping on homeless bum territory. And they didn’t look older than twenty-five. Steve didn’t look any older, Natasha was ageless, the two gods didn’t look older than thirty for all their being older than the moon—good god Tony was starting to feel old. It was disgusting. And evil. Very evil. 

The short one shamelessly sniffed the air while the black guy nodded at Phil. “Nice to see you, Phil.” Phil nodded back and the guy turned to the rest of them. “I’m Samuel King. I work for the Vigil—I’m basically Phil. These two are Niko and Cal Leandros.” He pointed to first the dirty blond then the short kid. Niko nodded back in a curt, business-like manner. Cal ignored the whole room to run his eyes over the two gods, having picked them up out of the room’s line-up with no difficulty. Which, Tony granted, might not have been that difficult. “I’m their liaison. Cal here is your gating expert.”

“Wait, this kid?” Tony said.

Clint wasn’t impressed much either. “He looks like a lost boy band member.”

At that, Cal grinned at Niko. “Hear that, Cyrano? They think I’m pretty.” 

Niko rolled his eyes.

Thor frowned slightly. “You are a skywalker?”

Cal stared at him for a moment, then snorted. “Yeah. Yeah, I got Jedi powers. Totally.”

Tony decided the kid might be okay. Still looked like a delinquent, though. 

Natasha eyed each of the three in turn. “I need proof before I condone this.”

Samuel looked at her, then raised an eyebrow at Phil, who shrugged. “You wanna?” he asked the two brothers. 

Niko thought about it for a moment before nodding. “Fair enough. Cal?” 

The youngster sighed dramatically, unslinging his duffel bag. “This is _work,_ Nik,” he complained. “There’d better be pizza after this.” With that, he shoved his hands into his pockets, a silver sheen outlined his form—and he disappeared. 

“Ya happy now?” he called from behind them. They swiveled to see him sprawled all over the common room couch. 

“Or how about now?” he asked from the bar stool next to Pepper, who squeaked like a mouse and clung to Natasha, who glared at the kid. “Or now?” he said next to Thor and Loki. He reappeared back by his bag, hands still in his pockets.

Steve crossed his arms. “I have no problem with this. He seems more than adequate to watch Loki.”

“Excellent!” Thor said with palpable relief. He pulled a key out from a pocket and unsnapped the cuffs before anyone could say anything. Thor flexed his wrist and stretched like a cat while the rest of the Avengers stood frozen. 

Loki flexed his fingers and inhaled deeply, eyes closed. “That feels better.” 

And he teleported. 

The tablet in Tony’s hand pinged as the tracking program updated. Tony looked down. The trickster was somewhere in northern Finland. Somewhere in the Vätsäri Wilderness Area, to be precise. 

Cal leaned his head back on his neck and groaned. “I take it back,” he said. “ _This_ is work. Gimme that.” He stomped forward and swiped the tablet out of Tony’s hand. He grimaced. “I _hate_ cold,” he said before the silver sheen outlined him once more and he disappeared. 

There was an awkward silence where Phil and most of the Avengers glared at Thor, who had the grace to look sheepish though not really repentant, and Samuel and Niko studied the room. 

“Can I have that drink now?” Tony asked.

Pepper resettled herself. “No.”

He scrubbed at his face. “Fine. While they’re out, how about we show you your rooms?” he said to Niko. 

The blond shifted his weight, settling into a firmer stance. 

“Before any of that, I have some ground rules. These are non-negotiable. Any violation of them results in termination of our contract.”

Samuel pinched the bridge of his nose but just waved a hand when Phil glanced at him. 

“First,” Niko continued, giving the Avengers a hard stare, “all mirrors in common areas that cannot be covered will be removed.”

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Of all places, why _Finland?_ The bastard could have teleported to anywhere—LA, Disney World, fucking _Fiji._ Why _Finland?_ Yeah, it was midsummer in the northern hemisphere. Did that mean that it wouldn’t be cold? No! 

I gated in behind him where he was crouched by a tree, digging around its roots. “Really, dude?” I asked. He spun frantically, hand straying to his hip before he remembered he didn’t have a weapon. Green eyes sparked at me. I crossed my arms. “Really? Two seconds out of the cuffs and you’re already out the gate? There are better ways to play hooky, you gotta know that.”

“You would not say that if Thor was your brother,” Loki said. He was hiding something in the roots; I could smell it. There was the tang of metal and old leather in the air, buried underneath all that woodsy pine smell and the alien’s own icy river scent. I circled around to the left. He angled his body to block my view. 

“Suspicious bastard,” I muttered. “Fine, whatever, not my problem. Now let’s get back to America where it’s warm.”

I started to build a gate beside me and reached for his arm. Loki danced away, shoving the thing he’d been hiding deeper into the roots with a well-aimed kick. He grinned manically at me. “You’ll have to catch me first.” And he teleported away again. 

This could get old. 

The tablet pinged. He was now somewhere in west Johannesburg. When I arrived on the rooftop of the apartment complex, there was just another grin and he was gone again. Yep. Really getting old.

By the time I had chased him around Cambodia, Mount Rushmore, Peru, Kiev, Guam, the Sahara, and Sicily, the grin had dissolved into peeved malice. The bastard was obviously envisioning doing violence on my person. That was fine by me. I wasn’t the nicest person either and I was more than fed up with this little game of cat-and-mouse. I was tired, and I wanted a pizza. 

Teleporting to goddamn Siberia was the last straw. 

Gating beside him, I pulled my Glock and shot him in the leg before he could glare at me. He staggered in the snow, throwing me a shocked look, and I took the opportunity to get an iron grip on his wrist. I gave him my own shark grin. “I win,” and I gated us back to the tower’s common room. 

All conversation stopped as we dropped onto the rug in front of the couch. Loki, disoriented from the gunshot in the first place, lost his balance and stumbled a step before his knees buckled and he hit the floor. 

“Welcome back,” Nik said from the breakfast bar where he had been talking to the Stark CEO. 

Beside her, Stark was frowning at Loki. 

“Is he bleeding? Is that blood on my rug?”

“Eh,” I said, holstering my Glock. “He’s an alien. He’ll be fine.”

“You have injured my brother?” the blond jock asked, his hand twitching by his side. 

I scowled at him. He actually took half a step back, shock rippling across his face. I glanced sideways at Nik. He tapped a finger to his eyes, one corner of his mouth frowning. Shit. I was doing it again. I shifted all my weight to one foot and folded my arms, took a quiet breath. “Yeah, well, your baby brother was giving me a wild goose chase all over the damn planet. I haven’t gated that much since that crazy red cap.” I nudged Loki with my toe. “I suppose I should give you kudos for that. You’ve certainly got balls to try anything so soon. This just might be fun after all. Annoying, but fun.”

I ducked the apple Nik threw at me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there is anything that you loved or didn't understand, please let me know so that I know what to do more of or what to explain in the future.
> 
> The Cal Leandros series is one of the most wonderful things I own. If you enjoy "Supernatural", you'll most likely like these books (more vampires, werewolves, pucks, and lamias than demons and not as creepy (I think)). READ THEM. Your life will become better, I promise.
> 
> The more we talked about it, the more we saw pieces of the two fandoms that fit together and there are scenes I *need* to see (Loki as a bartender at the Ninth Circle anyone? Robin Goodfellow vs Tony Stark?). I'm still working on hammering out the plot for this (and I'm still working on another fic) so updates might be slow, but I love this idea too much to let it go, so please be patient with me!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience! I have a plot (still missing an ending) so updates should come fairly regularly from now on? My sister now demands to beta the thing and her schedule is more wonky than mine so...we'll see? I make no promises. 
> 
> Judging from the stack of index cards I have, this is going to be a long one. 
> 
> Enjoy!

They gave us the same room. 93 floors of steel and glass tower, billionaire, and they made me sleep in the same room as Houdini. And when I protested, it was all, he could teleport at any minute and god forbid we let him get away for even a nanosecond. And all of my yelling “they had a goddamn _AI_ didn’t they” didn’t do jack shit. 

The only saving grace was that all that teleporting to far off places meant Loki was damn near operating on fumes, so as soon as his leg was patched up and we were shown our room, it didn’t take long for him to conk out. 

I, on the other hand…yeah. I wish.

Whenever I gated too far or too much in too short a time, the other half of my genes pushed to the forefront. Most notably, they changed my gray eyes, the only thing I shared with Niko, the only sign that we really were joined by blood, changed them from their normal silver gray to a faintly glowing, seething lava red. 

Cliché, I know. Every monster under the bed has red glowing eyes. But the bedtime stories had to come from somewhere, and my sperm donor came from one of the oldest races in existence. Hell, the fucker had probably been _alive_ to inspire the nursery rhymes, though they would have been much more bloody back then. My family liked to hunt dinosaurs for fun. 

Somewhere in those gloomy thoughts, my own exhaustion took over and flicked my off switch. All I knew was that way too soon, the ceiling light was blinding me and that goddamn AI was speaking from the ceiling, _“Good morning, Mr. Leandros, Mr. Odinson.”_

“Don’t you dare call me by that name,” Loki growled from his pillow.

_“My apologies, sir. What name would you prefer?”_

“Why bother calling me anything at all?”

_“I require to know your appellation preference for managing Tower communications, answering requests as to your status, and for when I need to address you personally to determine preferences and to alert you to the requests of the other Avengers.”_

“…fine, just ‘Loki’.”

 _“Thank you,”_ the AI said politely. 

“Yeah yeah, wonderful,” I sniped. “Why are you bringing this up now, Jarvy? I was sleeping.”

 _“The time is currently 9:03am, Mr. Leandros.”_ JARVIS actually sounded disapproving. A computer was disapproving of my sleeping habits. _“And your and Mr. Loki’s presence has been requested at the breakfast table.”_

I groaned, turned to the wall, and pulled the blankets up over my head. “It’s not even _ten_ yet. That’s not breakfast, that’s torture.”

There was a pause then, _“I have been requested to inform you specifically, Mr. Leandros, that if you do not appear in the dining area in ten minutes, Mr. Leandros Sr. will personally come and evict you from the bed.”_

I grumbled darkly but sat up, giving the ceiling a glare that, if the universe had any justice in it whatsoever—which, I knew from long experience, it didn’t—would have scorched obscene insults about its mother into tile, hacked it to pieces with a machete, and set the whole shebang on fire. 

Well. If I couldn’t have my god given right to fourteen hours of sleep, no one else was either. 

“Rise and shine, Houdini. We’ve been summoned.”

He didn’t even twitch. 

I stomped over to his bed and pulled the covers off in one swift jerk. He sprang upright and glared at me. “Fess up and face the music. If we’re lucky there will be donuts.” I grabbed his pillow for good measure and opened the door, standing in it pointedly. 

Loki glared at me from the bare mattress for a few moments longer but then his stomach growled. He pretended not to have heard it as he gracefully stood and walked out the door. Well, as gracefully as his leg let him be. Eh, he was still better than a normal human would have been. He’d be fine. I tossed the blankets and pillows back on his bed before following. 

Everyone was waiting around the extended breakfast bar when we walked in. Nik was sitting by Captain America with Thor and the Stark CEO across from them. Captain America… hey, there was a thought! For revenge I could introduce him to Robin. Sit back with some popcorn to watch the Icon of the American Dream redden under the puck’s shameless flirting. He was that blond pretty boy type Robin liked. 

The four of them looked like they had been awake for hours already and weren’t they all just fucking peppy. They’d probably all run five miles and then had actual real conversation over tea with their little pinkies raised before the sun rose.

God I hate morning people. 

At least Stark was more like me. He was sitting at the far end with a ginormous cup of coffee the size of an ostrich egg and his head on the table. The quiet person who I assumed was the mild-mannered version of the Hulk was somewhere between Stark and Captain America; he was sitting upright with a mug of tea but his eyes had the glazed look of the forcibly sleep deprived.

Hawkeye and Black Widow occupied strategic corners where they could keep an eye on all the exits and have a good view of the breakfast bar. They stood in that stance Niko did when assessing a threat: loose, ready, and, on the Widow’s part, not even bothering to hide their suspicions.

I breezed past all of them straight for the platter of—yes!—donuts. I needed sugar. Good fucking lord, did I need sugar. All that gating tuckered me out too, and now I’d been pried from my bed before my beloved fourteen hours of sleep. My body was not up to this. 

I threw Nik the evil eye as I bit into a jelly donut. 

He ignored me, instead looking over Houdini as he settled in beside me with all the authority of Robin’s cat Salome who knew she was entitled to everything to that ever crossed her path. 

“There had better be a good reason for this,” I grumbled around the pastry.

“We’re here to work, Cal,” Niko said. “That means we keep work hours.”

“It’s a 24/7 babysitting job. There _are_ no regular hours! I can sleep as long as I want to. Especially after last night. That was exhausting. It was worse than those ridiculous runs you force me to do.”

“Stop whining,” Niko said, vegan buttering a piece of vegan toast. Rabbit food. Astonishingly early in the morning. “Remember I didn’t make you run this morning. You may thank me at your leisure.” He took a bite of his hippie toast, never bothering to look in my direction.

I fingered my butter knife. Even though I sucked at throwing knives maybe I could make it as such a short distance. But would it be satisfying since that the damn ninja’d probably dodge it?

Widow narrowed her eyes at me. 

“I suppose that’s as good a segue as any,” Captain America said. “Those of us here who don’t work for SHIELD are a little out of the loop and there wasn’t much opportunity last night to have proper introductions.”

I waved my donut. “You’re the Avengers, superheroes straight from the comic books. Well, except for Iron Boy over there. He’s just super fucking batshit rich with a predilection for oil and wrenches. I’d say the same about Robin Hood and maybe Itsy Bitsy, but I like my balls where they are, thanks.”

Captain American muttered something under his breath about catching something. 

Hawkeye raised an eyebrow. “You’re not afraid Tony will castrate you?”

“Please. Our own ludicrously rich sex-crazed friend hasn’t even managed that. And he has assured me that he’s been tempted.”

“Well then,” the Captain said, attempting to regain control of the conversation, “that’s us, I guess. With the exception of Miss Potts, whom I guess you already know as the CEO of Stark Industries. So, how about you? If you’ll forgive me saying so, how did two youngsters like you come to be experts SHIELD hires without much question?”

I let Niko have this one. Niko negotiated and stabbed things, I shot and scent-tracked them. People skills were not in my job description and thus not my problem. 

Niko considered the group of superheroes for a moment. “How much do you know about the Vigil?” 

The sleepy mild-mannered not-green—which was kinda disappointing—Hulk shrugged. “Not much. I tried looking them up last night but I couldn’t find much more than rumors that they exist.”

“They hunt fairytales,” Hawkeye said.

“What does that even _mean?”_ Stark whined, pulling a tablet over to tap at it. “Damn SHIELD firewalls,” he muttered. 

“The Vigil,” Niko said, “are a human organization that keeps an eye on the activities of paiens to ensure that a minimum number of humans are caught in their activities. They also work to ensure that most humans stay unaware that paiens exist. As for the paiens, most ignore the Vigil as inconsequential and little more than nosy, except when they’re useful in helping with cleaning up.”

“What’s a paien?” the Hulk asked.

“Paiens are every supernatural creature from mythology or folklore. The term itself is of Old French origin and means ‘pagan’—”

“Jesus, Nik, they don’t need the college lecture. Long story short: paiens are your vampires, your werewolves, lamias, pucks, trolls—funny thing, they actually live under bridges, did you know that? I’ve even heard a rumor about a dragon somewhere, but I have a standing policy of never trusting revenants, so who knows.”

By this point every human not employed by SHIELD was staring at me. Stark was upright. 

“You’re shitting me,” he said. 

I wrinkled my nose. “Ew. I don’t think even a Wolf would do that. Besides,” I added, waving a hand, “these two Norse godlets know what I’m talking about.” I squinted at Thor. “Pretty sure our friend mentioned you in passing once. Know any puck by the name of Robin?”

“Robin? Puck?” Hulk asked. “As in Robin Goodfellow?” His eyebrows rose into his hair. “ _The_ Robin Goodfellow? Like, Shakespeare Robin Goodfellow?”

“He resents that work. Apparently Shakespeare made him a servant because Robin refused to sleep with him.”

Thor’s face brightened. “Yes, I remember your friend. Quick, agile little fighter, stout drinker. Truly, he was a fine companion. He once won a drinking contest with me.” I snorted. Of course he did. Thor grinned at Loki over my shoulder. “You and he had grand contests, I recall. He used to accuse you of cheating with your magic.”

Houdini said nothing. Just kept methodically working his way through a bowl of fruit. Who knew Norse godlets didn’t know how to hold a fork properly?

Stark was still looking like he needed a reboot along with his fancy-ass gadget. “Vampires exist. Fangs, blood, aversion to sunlight? Really?” He dug his fingers through his hair viciously. “This…I—my world needs a make-over now. _God_ I need a drink.”

I flipped him the bird casually as I reached for another donut. “Hey, no different from you informing me that fucking _aliens_ exist. My world was crazy enough. I didn’t need insane space alien Viking gods running through it, thanks oh so fucking much.”

“And how exactly do you two fit into this?” Captain America asked with a cross-eyed look. It was strangely cute. Like watching a golden retriever try to watch a bone some truly sadistic dog-lover had balanced on his nose. Much like the look Nik had when he learned I’d bombed Robin’s apartment with undead cats—and when he’d learned Robin had given two of them to Promise. Good times.

I shrugged. “I work at a paien bar.”

“A paien bar,” Stark repeated in monotone. 

“Don’t serve a vodyanoi margaritas,” I said. “Mopping up all the melted juices is a bitch.” 

“I work part-time at a dojo and occasionally as a teaching assistant at a local community college,” Niko said, giving me a disapproving frown over his tea cup. Not a mug. A tea. Cup. Because for some reason Stark had those. Oh right. Long-term cohabitation. Seriously though. The vodyanoi had been _ages_ ago. “But most of our income comes from our private-contractor business that we run with our partners, Robin Goodfellow and Promise Nottinger.”

Stark’s head swiveled so fast it had to have hurt. “Promise? _Promise Nottinger?_ Tell me you don’t mean who I think you mean, please tell me you don’t mean who I think you mean.”

I grinned wickedly as a truly entertaining thought crossed my mind. “Stark, you didn’t try to pick her up, did you?” I snickered at his dismayed expression. “She’s a vampire.”

I ate my donut, watching in fascination as the knowledge sunk into Stark’s brain and his expression slowly turned to true horror. “Pep—Pepper. I have a vague—possibly drunk—memory of once asking her to ‘suck me dry’. Please tell me I’m dreaming, Pepper.”

I choked, spraying donut bits across the breakfast bar. That was better than anything I had just been imagining. Then I caught sight of Niko’s expression—caught somewhere between amused, vaguely disgusted, and like he was considering pulling his katanas to avenge—ha!—the slander against her person—and doubled over, bracing myself on my knees. I couldn’t breathe, I was laughing so hard. Tears pooled in my eyes. 

Oh man. I hadn’t laughed, really _laughed_ for a long time.

When I finally came up for air, Houdini was eyeing me like I had a few springs loose, the rest of the Avengers didn’t seem to know what to think, and Niko, having decided against knightly heroic deed on his lady’s behalf, was sipping his tea and patiently waiting.

“Done?” he asked, quirking a brow.

“Sure,” I said cheerfully, reaching for the rest of my donut. A few snickers still escaped. 

“Good.” He turned back to Stark. “Yes, that Promise Nottinger. She is the public face of our business. She finds us clients and handles the paperwork and finances. Robin occasionally helps out.”

“And what does your business do?” Captain America asked.

“Kick ass,” I said. 

“We have a unique skill set,” Niko said over me. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Widow’s mouth twitch. It was a small tell, most people would have missed it, but mommy the con artist had instilled the skill of reading people into us at a young age. Needless to say, we didn’t miss much. 

“Not all paiens are bloodthirsty,” Nik continued. “The Vigil tends to ignore those unless the situation gets desperate as there are a great many other paiens that are perfectly happy to eat the unsuspecting jogger, so we offer them our services. We have been bodyguards, retrievers of lost property, and exterminators.”

“So you’re mercenaries,” the Widow said.

“What a boring way to put it,” I scoffed. 

“Explains your duffel bags full of weaponry.”

I grinned at her, held eye contact, and took a particularly large bite of my donut. The raspberry filling dripped out the sides and onto the counter top in a very satisfying manner.

Nik flicked a napkin at me without looking.

“Does your skill set include the ‘gating’?” Captain America continued with his futile attempt to keep the conversation on track. 

I shoved the rest of the donut into my mouth. “A gift from good ol’ daddy dearest.”

Captain America looked at me like he was a banker who had somehow walked into a Santa Claus sex convention in July and didn’t know quite what to make of it all. 

“So the ability’s a genetic inheritance,” the Hulk offered.

“Yup.”

“Are both of you able to gate?”

“Nope. Just me. Cyrano and I don’t come from quite the same gene pool.”

Captain America glanced between the two of us in a confused manner. “So…”

“We have the same mother,” Niko said, spine straight as Excalibur and staring the icon of the American Dream down like he was a bully trying to steal my lunch money.

The icon of the American Dream backed off. 

There was silence that was only a little bit awkward. Captain America looked apologetic, Stark was still checked out, the Hulk had the same serene expression he’d carried throughout the whole conversation and the two SHIELD agents were still on alert, though Hawkeye looked a little appeased. Thor actually looked a little bored. Loki had finished his fruit bowl and was studiously staring at his hands. Except for when his eyes would flick to me, then Nik, and back again. 

“Well,” I said, shoving away from the breakfast bar, “this has been fun. Let’s never do it again, shall we? Jarvy, point me to the television. Stark’s gotta have a doozy, right?”

A truly giant—like, NASA would head Mission Control on it giant—television descended from the ceiling in the living area past the breakfast bar. 

“Sweet.” I hopped over the back of the couch and sprawled along its fancy-pants leather length, looking about for the remote. 

“I do believe that is our cue,” the Stark CEO said, standing up. She snagged a hand around Stark’s elbow as she passed. “Come on, Tony, we have an R&D meeting thirty floors down in three minutes.”

“What? Pep, I can’t leave now, there’s—”

“Don’t even. You promised me your presence three weeks ago when I told you about this meeting. Mr. Leandros showed himself quite capable of watching over Loki, so there’s no excuse for you to not work.”

Stark protested all the way to the elevator. The Hulk trotted along after them. Apparently he was also employed by Stark Industries. Perfect. The guy seemed to be a fuzzier version of Niko—he gave off the same “my body is a temple and my mind is zen” vibe but without the “and I can chop your liver into chicken nuggets with my butter knife” undertone—but there was a shadow in his scent, something faintly acrid and warm that promised mayhem. I’m self-aware enough to realize I’m not exactly the Dalai Lama and I didn’t want to become the next Harlem.

Thor looked at Loki’s empty bowl. “Is that truly enough for you, brother?” When Loki said nothing, he continued. “Man of Iron has many other foods in his cupboards. The Tarts of Pop are particularly satisfying.” 

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

If Captain America was a confused golden retriever, Thor was a cocker spaniel who’d just been kicked. “I have been informed my Jane works in this Tower and I would like to see her, yes. But you are my brother and—”

“By the Nine, just go!”

Thor looked ready to argue it, but instead took a deep breath and turned to the rest of us. “Please have JARVIS alert me if my presence is required.”

“Right,” I said as I tossed the pillows off the couch and dug around for the remote. “Totally will do or whatever.”

Thor didn’t seem truly appeased by this, but, glancing once more at his brother, he did leave.

“And I think that is our cue as well,” Captain America said apologetically, glancing at the two agents as he got up. “We have a meeting with SHIELD in an hour. I didn’t think we’d be able to go, what with the whole Loki situation, but you do seem to have it all well in hand.” 

Widow was still sending me truly suspicious glances, like she expected me to pee on the carpet when she wasn’t looking or something.

“Come on, Nat,” Hawkeye said as he stretched, “the Vigil vouches for them, SHIELD thinks it’s fine, they’ve explained themselves, JARVIS can alert us if anything goes wrong, it’s fine, everything is fine. Come on. You’re the one who’s always harping on me about paperwork and protocol.”

She gave me a death glare one last time—probably refraining from the whole “I’m watching” hand gesture because that would have ruined her badassery—then the last of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes left the room, leaving just me, Nik, and one seriously emo passive aggressive alien criminal I had to babysit.

And I _still_ had yet to find the remote. Stark had money out his pores, how did he not have a remote?

Niko dropped my duffel bag on the couch beside me, giving me a reproachful look for having left it behind in the process, and stood there, watching with folded arms as I dug through the cushions. “How did you sleep?”

“Like a drunk coke-head hit by a train. You couldn’t bother to let me sleep in?”

“When were you planning on making an appearance?”

“….lunchtime?”

Cyrano let his silence do the disapproving for him. 

I let out a shout of triumph as I unearthed the remote from the side of the armchair. I flopped back on the couch and began channel surfing Stark’s truly staggering array of channels. 

“Were there any…?”

“No.”

Niko let out a breath through his nose. That was my big brother. Have one incident and he’s all over me to make sure I didn’t have any nightmares. 

I had no plans to mention the fact that it had taken me hours to fall asleep—what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and he’d get his panties all in a wad if he ever found out.

“Seriously,” I said, “relax. It’s just a babysitting detail. I can handle it.”

“Oh yes. Like you handled that Bean Nighe a month ago. I am filled with confidence.”

Dear fuck, get fished out of the Hudson _once_ — “Dammit, Nik, I didn’t get thrown in, I _jumped,_ okay? She was drowning the poor fucker. It’s not like I can’t deal with one decrepit little old lady, even if she did have webbed feet and swam like a fucking seal.”

“Of course. Jumped. Fifty feet off the shore.”

I didn’t dignify that with a comment. Nik watched me flick through the channels. A few looked promising but with all this wealth, I had to check all my options. Just for shits and giggles. 

Loki wasn’t adding anything to this conversation but he also hadn’t snuck off, so that was a plus. 

“I suppose I can take yesterday as a demonstration of your ability to not completely get yourself screwed over,” Niko finally said. 

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, Cyrano.”

He whapped me on the back of the head. “I going to go set things up at the dojo and with Bethany. I also have a business meeting with Promise so I may get back late.”

“‘Late’,” I said, air quoting with my fingers around the remote. I smirked up at him. “How ‘late’ are we talking?”

He whapped me again—harder—then turned to go. “Stay put this time,” he said to Houdini as he opened the door to the stairs. Of course he did. If Samuel hadn’t been there yesterday, he probably would have made me tramp up all 93 floors like any other super ninja. Yeah, yeah, I totally agreed, elevators were death waiting to happen—small enclosed space with only one door? When things with metal teeth and the wish for your violent, vicious murder exist? Right, yeah, no thank you. But they were all dead now and this was Avengers Tower and I hadn’t gotten a whiff of anything more threatening than the odd brownie and one sarkany that reeked of ozone and electrical putty. All perfectly docile unless their territory was attacked and therefore completely ignorable. There was no point to making myself suffer for no damn reason. 

The door swung shut behind him and Houdini and I were left alone in the Tower. Well, if one didn’t count the omnipresent supercomputer watching from the ceiling. 

“You can stay there if you want,” I said as I flipped past a show about losing weight for the entertainment of the masses. “Just stay in the room. I can smell you if you’re in the room and I don’t want to have to bother with checking the tablet every few seconds.”

“Smell me.” Houdini sounded like he was caught between being derisive, curious, and disgusted. 

I tapped my nose without looking away from the screen. “The gift that keeps on giving—daddy’s monster DNA.”

I flipped a few more channels. Watched a nature documentary for a bit as some English dude discussed the many ways in which animals had sex. Flipped on the next commercial break to reruns of home improvement shows and continued flipping. Apparently even with a gazillion channels there still wasn’t any decent programming at midday. 

“This calls for beer,” I declared, popping up from the couch and heading to the very obvious bar on the far side of the room. The cabinet opened to a wonderland of bottles. Some of this stuff not even Ishiah had—and you would think he would, as his clientele literally ran the gambit from cold bub to fancy-ass imported expensive-as-shit scotch to blood of grandmas distilled on a new moon. 

I started collecting bottles. 

“Yo, Houdini. Want anything?”

The trickster eyed me warily. “You would willingly give me alcohol.”

“Not my alcohol, so not my problem. And I regularly serve pints to werewolves and rusalkas. Nothing you do is gonna rattle me, trust me.” I tossed him a beer bottle. He seemed to catch it purely on reflex. 

I gathered up my chosen bottles and flopped back down on the couch, picking up the remote. A campy science fiction movie from the sixties was playing—something about a radio reporter having to save the planet from a malfunctioning spaceship. It was stupid, but at least not in the same way as reality TV. There’s only so much of that you can watch before you turn into a munchkin with peanuts for brains. I settled back into the couch with my beer.

We watched the movie in silence for another half hour before I started becoming bored. I grabbed my duffel bag and moved to the floor, spreading a towel across the rug so that Stark wouldn’t gripe about gun oil in his Persian imports. Then I pulled out all of my guns—except the one I had tucked into the waistband of my pants and the two I’d hidden underneath my bed and mattress—and went to work cleaning them, starting with the one I’d shot Mr. Houdini with as I couldn’t be bothered to do it last night. 

As I was finishing it, I felt eyes on me. I looked up to see Houdini watching. 

“Wanna learn how to clean a gun?” I asked as I reassembled the gun with the swiftness of long practice, checking it over once I finished. 

“Are you truly this stupid?” Loki asked. He appeared to be disbelieving but genuinely curious. 

“I bore easily. And who says it’s stupid? Just because you know how to clean a gun doesn’t mean I can’t still shoot you with one.”

Loki eventually conceded my point, and limped over—hardly any more than if he had a sprain; see, he was totally fine—to sit down beside me, running a curious eye over my pile of weaponry. 

“Right,” I said, setting the finished gun aside and reaching for the next one on the pile, “first you unload it so you don’t remove your nose and half your brain trying to clean it.” And I embarked on a happy hour of coaching the teleporting alien through disassembling Earth guns and cleaning out the bore to the soundtrack of campy sixties science fiction.

I was teaching Loki how to reassemble the gun when Stark walked back into the room.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, peoples! I'm going to attempt an update schedule of every other Sunday. (Make your bets on whether or not I actually succeed.) As always, thank you for your patience, kudos, and comments. 
> 
> Neither my beta nor I own a gun nor have much experience with guns besides watching other people shoot them (mainly on TV), so if I get anything incorrect here, please correct me! I researched what I could—because I truly love some good research—but the Internet does not always answer questions in a completely helpful manner (SHOCKER). 
> 
> Enjoy!

Stark paused in the doorway just as the movie’s reporter disconnected the spaceship’s computer. His face had a similar expression. 

“Hey, Stark,” I called as I dissembled my second Glock. “Need a reboot there?”

The genius actually seemed to struggle for words. “What—you—is that a Desert Eagle?” He pointed to one of the guns in the clean pile. 

“Yes, yes it is.” I gave the weapon in question a loving caress only half-jokingly. It really was a gorgeous piece of weaponry. Stopped Kin right in their furry tracks. And could blow a revenant to bits without me having to actually put in effort, though cleaning up afterwards was sometimes a bit of a bitch. 

“Good fucking god, how many guns do you have in that bag? And you’re letting him touch them—wait a minute. Is that—is that one of _my_ guns?”

“Seeing as how you don’t make them anymore, it’s hardly one of yours, is it?” I said as he stomped over, completely ignoring the fact that his name was emblazoned on the muzzle. The egotistical twit. “No touchy.” I swatted away the reaching hand with a glare. 

He glared right back. “That’s the model F32—it has _armor-piercing rounds!_ First off, how the _hell_ did you even manage to acquire that, we didn’t sell it outside the military or security firms and second— _why is he touching it?_ Fucking hell, are you actually teaching the guy who invaded New York with aliens how to clean a gun?”

Loki rolled his eyes as he doused the next cleaning swab in solvent. “Told you.”

“So? Doesn’t mean I still can’t shoot him, and who cares if he knows how to clean a gun? There are knives all over that kitchen. Hell, I could kill you with a well-placed pen.” I tilted my head to the side. “Three different ways, actually.”

“Guns are a little more destructive than knives! And he’s _Loki_. He opened _a magic portal over the city so that he could destroy it.”_

I rolled my own eyes. “Whoop-de-fucking-doo.”

“Excuse me?” Stark sputtered. Even Loki was giving me a funny look. Jesus, it had only been a day and I was already tired of people looking at me like I was crazy. Like I was a bloodthirsty monster, yes, that I was used to, but not even the patrons of the Ninth Circle thought I was crazy. This is a tower full of superheroes, aliens, and Agent Smith’s good twin. Why was _I_ the weird one out?

“Newsflash: lots of people have done that. _I’ve_ done that. You don’t see the Vigil denying me access to projectile weapons. And trust me, if I had succeeded, the world would have gone to hell in a fucking gift basket with a no return policy.”

That shocked Stark into silence for a moment but before he could open his mouth again, an alarm started to sound. Stark glared at the ceiling like he’d wished it on the other side of the world, then jabbed a finger at me. “We are so not done here. Keep him away from the fucking guns.”

I flipped him the finger, both hands, as he stalked back to the elevator, yelling for JARVIS to get the suit ready, the alarm continuing for a few seconds longer before shutting off. 

“What’s up, Jarvy?”

_“SHEILD has sent out a call to assemble. Apparently a squadron of genetically-enhanced octopi are attempting to break into the warehouses where the Chitauri technology is being kept.”_

I blinked. “Okay…that’s not weird at all.”

_“Indeed.”_

Loki was still giving me suspicious looks as he ran a brush through the Glock’s bore.

“What?” 

“If I didn’t already have evidence of your stupidity, this would make me question your intelligence.”

“Gee, thanks, Pollyanna. You really know how to make a guy feel special.” 

“No, you truly are the idiot of all society. Most sensible people have the same reaction as Stark. It’s biologically hardwired.”

“And what gave you the idea that I’m like most people?” I said, tapping my nose as a reminder. 

Loki said nothing to that, just pressed his mouth into a tight line and went back to the bore, holding it up to his eye for inspection before lubricating it. I picked up the remote to surf through the channels now that the cheesy movie was rolling credits. Nature programs, cooking programs, commercials, 90s sitcoms, news networks, the weather in Houston, Ancient Aliens—which would have been funny if I didn’t have one sitting next to me with gun oil on his fingers—more commercials…there really wasn’t anything on but crap. 

I thumbed the TV off and my gaze landed on the F32. 

“JARVIS, this place got a gun range?”

_“Agents Barton and Romanoff insisted on it.”_

“Sweet. Come on, Houdini,” I said, gathering up the duffel bag and cleaned guns. “I’m bored.”

“You have the attention span of a demented _bilgesnipe_. We have only made it through a third of your pile.”

“All the ones on the bottom haven’t been used recently. On your feet. I don’t want to have to keep glancing at a tablet every few seconds while I’m trying to aim.” I hooked a finger in the back of his collar and hauled Houdini to his feet, where he promptly whacked my hand away and glared at me like an affronted cat. More and more he was reminding me of Salome. Next thing you know he’ll be glaring at me from on top the fridge. 

I herded him into the elevator and had JARVIS take us to the gun range, which apparently had been built into one of the sub-basements. I whistled at the truly impressive facility and wandered around, opening cabinets and pushing buttons. The cabinets were full of guns, ammunition, cleaning supplies, and safety equipment. Fuck yeah. They had literally _everything:_ “civilian” handguns to assault and sniper rifles to—of course—all manner of bows under the ever-loving sun. I might try one out sometime when I am truly bored. Different buttons changed the lighting, the target distance, the target object, even the position of the counter to account for different shooting angles. There was also, I discovered after opening an important-looking door, an obstacle course. 

A boot-camp-evil, FBI grade, motherfucking _obstacle course._

 _“Agents Romanoff and Barton insisted on it,”_ JARVIS said. _“Captain Rogers also agreed. All obstacles and targets are controlled by me to provide battle-like conditions. The Avengers frequently use it for group training.”_

“Say no more.” The same room the Avengers used to train? Hell yeah I was going to try it out. Fishing out a pair of handcuffs from the side of the duffel bag, I gated over to Loki and had him cuffed to a leg of the observation room’s counter before he could blink. I love me.

Loki jangled the cuffs, then twisted his wrists, trying to see just how much give they had. 

“Tough luck, Houdini, that metal support’s bolted to the floor. You try to teleport, you’re taking the whole building with you. Jarvy, let’s do this thing!” 

_“What scenario would you prefer, Mr. Leandros?”_ A holographic screen popped up on the room’s observing window and I scrolled through my options. There were search-and-rescue, invasion, infiltration— 

“Hey, Hal, which one do the Avengers have the most trouble with?”

An option highlighted itself and a list of parameters appeared beside it and started scrolling. I waved it away. “Yeah, whatever, let’s do that one.”

_“I feel I should point out that that scenario is designed for a team—”_

I laughed as I slipped into my double shoulder holster, tucking extra magazines into my pockets. “Your point, Jarvy?”

If a computer could sigh, I think he would have. _“Apparently it is moot.”_ The screen winked out and the course beyond the glass started rearranging itself, targets disappearing into the floor while obstacles sprung out of the walls and settled into place. When they finished moving around, the view providing by the various cameras looked like a city park, complete with benches and trashcans, the only light coming from the lanterns on the ‘paths’. Can you say “over-achiever”?

_“The scenario is as follows—”_

“Just give me the end goal. What do I need to do to win?”

_“…Mr. Leandros just needs to defuse the bomb at the far end of the course without taking a fatal hit and before the time limit of fifteen minutes.”_

“It’s not a real bomb, right?”

_“No. There is a button.”_

“Great. Start her up.”

I saluted Houdini with the tip of my freshly-cleaned Glock then cracked open the door and slithered inside. 

Immediately I was set upon by a bevy of robots puffed up by holograms into flying…somethings. It was a bit difficult to tell between the shimmering of the hologram and the chunky metal of the robot underneath. Not that I really cared. I just shot them and ran, dodging bodies as they fell. 

Yeah, I could see why this was supposed to be a team exercise. There was never a dull moment. Something was always attacking me, usually more than two from any one angle. I took to jumping off the ‘trees’ and benches before deciding _“screw that”_ and just gated about the course, shooting, kicking, and stabbing with the combat knife from my boot as I went. JARVIS, curse his AI brain, eventually started to adapt: the robots took to leaving lookouts along the periphery of the current fight, ready to tackle me when I gated. 

Well, two could play that game. 

I must have looked like some demented bunny rabbit, popping up all over the place, never staying in one position more than a few seconds, leaving spent magazines and robot corpses in my wake. 

Goddamn it was fun. 

The robots started to get more desperate the closer I got to the ‘bomb’, but by that point I had already decimated their numbers so there really wasn’t much they could do about it. I shot the last robot standing between the eyes, point-blank, then tapped the red button with the Glock. The lights came fully on and any robots still twitching toward me stopped. 

I smiled up at a camera in the ceiling. “Now _that_ was _fun._ I don’t get many chances to shoot things without worrying for my life.” I twirled the Glock around my finger as I picked my way back to the observation room. As soon as I was clear, the room started cleaning itself up, new robots gliding out from the walls to sweep the shot robots off to a chute in the corner. 

Houdini was even where I had last put him. Awesome.

Statistics appeared on the window. I whistled. “Damn, are you serious?” I pointed to one of the numbers. “I seriously got one of the top three scores?” Hawkeye—obviously—had the top score, with the Widow in second, but I was only off her score by four points, and Hawkeye’s only by ten. 

_“For marksmanship, yes.”_

“Ah, so what if it took me fourteen minutes? Cut me some slack, I didn’t have Captain America as backup.”

_“This is true. Your performance was more than I had initially calculated.”_

“Damn straight it is.” I stretched, rolling a shoulder. “God _damn_ that was fun.” A twitch in Loki’s body language caught my attention. He was scrutinizing my stats, a faint disapproving furrow in his brow. 

I fisted my hands on my hips. “Got something to say there, bud?”

“Yes, you did very well,” he said in the tone of a patronizing kindergarten teacher, “even if you did have three errors that would have let you finish within ten minutes.”

“Oh really now?” I held out the Glock to him, despite the fact that his hands were cuffed to the counter. “Care to have a go then?”

The alien gave a truly flummoxed look. I’d seen the exact same expression on a goat once. A drunken Robin had bought it at this Asian market and had carried it around on a tour of grungy bars, serenading it until Ishiah lost what little patience he had and put his foot down with violence to Robin’s person. I think the goat was at a pet sanctuary now. We all felt sorry for it. 

“You—,” Loki stuttered, his brow furrowing into truly impressive grooves. “I have no idea what to make of you. You demonstrate adequate survival skills yet your stupidity is such that I truly wonder how you are still alive.”

“Could you knock it off with insulting my intelligence? I already know I’m not the brightest bulb. Do you want to run the course or not?”

Loki searched my face. “You would really let me.”

“Well, Nik’s not here to rub my nose in my mistakes, so you’ll just have to do, won’t you?”

Loki snorted. “If you insist.”

“Great,” I said with a wolfish grin, fishing the cuff’s key out of a pocket. “You don’t know how to shoot a gun so I really want to see this. Jarvy, set it up again, would ya?” I unlocked the cuffs and held up the Glock. “Shooting 101: aim, pull trigger, replace magazine when trigger makes a clicky sound.”

 

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

 

Tony took the quinjet with the rest of the team instead of flying himself back to the tower. One of the octopi had smashed him into a steel support beam and while the suit had only suffered minor damage, his ribs were royally bruised. If he didn’t have to drive, he wasn’t going to. Thankfully, that was about the worse injury the team had gotten. The only other ones were Natasha, who had pulled a muscle when an octopus had jerked her around, and Steve, who had sucker marks around his throat and one cheek. It looked disturbingly like hickeys. Tony couldn’t wait to see what the paparazzi did with that. 

It wasn’t until they were back at the tower, and Tony was free of his suit and hobbled into the living room to see the abandoned cleaning supplies that he remembered the conversation from earlier that morning.

“Shit! That’s right—guys, that little shit was teaching _Loki_ how to clean a gun!”

The two assassins paused in the process of pulling out take-out menus—none of them felt like cooking dinner. Shawarma. It was practically tradition anyway. 

Thor frowned. “You mean the gater was showing Loki how to handle your weapons?”

“It didn’t get that far, thank god, but Loki anywhere near a functioning gun can’t—wait. JARVIS?” Tony cast a suspicious look around the common area. “Where are they? Where did the little punk go?”

_“Misters Loki and Leandros are currently in sublevel four.”_

The team froze, looked at each other. That was where the gun range was. 

Tony broke for the elevator, ignoring the throbbing in his side. “What did I _just say?”_

The rest of the team piled after him into the elevator that JARVIS helpfully opened for them—good thing he’d gone for the industrial-sized one, no matter what Pepper had said about the waste of space and money—and it plunged down to the basement, opening on a silent and empty gun range. 

Natasha stalked to the door that lead to the obstacle course and jerked it open. 

The little shit was seated on the counter like he owned the damn place. He turned his head when the door opened and waved at them cheerfully. “Hey guys,” the punk said, “did you hav— _holy shit what the hell?”_ He clapped a hand over his nose and backed as far away from them as he could get, breathing through his mouth. “What the hell did you do? _Roll_ in fish guts?”

That derailed Tony for a moment—he exchanged a bewildered look with Steve—before he refocused on the main issue here: the disturbing lack of Loki. “JARVIS, where is Loki?”

_“Mr. Loki is currently in the middle of a battle scenario. At his current pace, he should finish within the next three minutes.”_

The trickster was nowhere in sight of the window, but the various screens gave excellent views of him teleporting and dancing around a pack of robots and projections, slipping a new magazine into the _damned F32_ before continuing on. 

The Avengers turned their death glares on the punk in the corner, who just gave them a grin. “What? He breezed right through your little bomb set-up. I wanted to know how he’d fare against a mob of Kin Wolves. I might have even thrown in a sirrush or two. His leg’s totally healed, by the way. Toldja he’d be fine.”

JARVIS unhelpfully took that as a hint to throw up both Cal’s and Loki’s stats in a corner of the window. Tony choked when he saw that the little punk had scored just fourteen points below Hawkeye. On a scenario that the Avengers as a team only completed seventy percent of the time. _Loki_ had tied with Steve’s scores. And that with a weapon that he shouldn’t have been able to use to any competent skill level. 

Natasha was giving Cal an appraising look while Clint just scowled at the numbers on the screen like he was considering eviscerating its children. 

The lights in the course came up and Loki teleported into the observation room, gun in hand. Instantly, what weapons the team had were up and pointed at him—except for Thor, who seemed caught between wary and amused. 

Loki ran an eye over them, then set the gun down on the counter and looked over at the punk. “What in the Nine happened to you?”

“They reek of fish. Like, seven-day-old rotting carcass fish.”

Loki glanced at the Avengers, who still hadn’t lowered their weapons since the F32 was still within easy grasping distance, and sniffed. “I don’t smell anything besides mortal sweat.” He wrinkled his nose. “Which itself is not pleasant.”

“Well then lucky little you,” the punk said. “Jarvy, how’d he do?”

_“For the Kin, Mr. Loki had forty-two kill shots, three maimings, and five broken necks. One sirrush took an armor-piercing round to the eye and brain, and the other was dismembered. Total time to completion: thirty-four minutes, twenty seconds.”_

“Not bad, Pollyanna. ‘Specially for someone who didn’t know how to shoot.”

Loki shrugged, not meeting anyone’s gaze. “Your weapons have interesting applications, but they are little more than a high velocity version of ‘throw a rock at the enemy’. It lacks the elegance of knife-work.”

“Oh good fuck.” Cal rolled his eyes. “Don’t let Cyrano hear you say that. He’ll be asking to spar.”

“If I may remind you that he’s a _war criminal_ ,” Tony interrupted. “JARVIS, why did you even allow this to happen?”

_“There were no instructions otherwise, sir.”_

Tony’s brows flew into his hairline. “I swear I programmed you better than that. No—I _know_ I programmed you better than that.”

_“My deepest apologies, sir. I’ll just go replace all my code, shall I?”_

“Are you pulling _snark_ on me?”

“Would you all mind _going away?”_ Cal whined from the corner. 

“How about you vacate the area before I confiscate your guns?” Steve said in the Captain America voice.

Cal just stared at him. “Wow. Do that again.”

_“If you will excuse the interruption, Mr. Leandros Sr. would like to know why Mr. Leandros’ cleaning supplies are ‘sprawled’ across the living room rug.”_

The punk winced. 

 

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

 

Stark practically banned me from the gun range over a dinner of Arabian meat wraps—they’d all showered beforehand, thank fuck, so I was able to eat without retching—but he grudgingly retracted his statements when I shrugged and said I’d just go to one outside the tower. There were serious perks to this job. I had the infamously loaded and all-powerful Tony Stark of the Avengers and Stark Industries over a barrel. I could so work with this. 

Houdini was strangely skittish during dinner. He sat on the edge of his seat and picked at his food, keeping a wary eye on his surroundings, retreating the moment anyone so much as leaned toward him. The Avengers and especially Thor were oblivious to his behavior, but I know the two SHIELD cronies noticed. They kept giving him stealthy glances. Like they expected him to make a break for it. 

I would have flicked crumbs at him to see if I could get him to jump, but I was currently getting chewed out by Niko for leaving chemicals unattended and not cleaning up my mess. I was an adult, I shouldn’t act like a toddler with ADHD, yadda yadda, blah blah blah. When I tried to distract him by mentioning they had a fucking awesome obstacle course, he had JARVIS show him the footage, and then he spent the rest of dinner berating me for the same mistakes Loki had noticed. So what if I’d missed a few openings? They were robots. It hadn’t been real. And besides, I beat the scenario. With a better score than two thirds of the Avengers! I think that’s awesome, thank you very fucking much. 

Niko just whapped me on the back of the head. 

 

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

 

I cuffed Loki to the bed because he very much had enough energy to teleport if he felt like it, and I refused to worry about babysitting while I was sleeping. Sleep was sacred. Don’t fuck with my sleep. 

Unless you are my brother. Then I’ll still snarl at you, but your balls are safe. 

I left Loki infuriated and trying to pick the lock with his nails, and followed my nose down to the gun range. I found Niko in a side room with what looked like a batting cage—except the machine was shooting clay pigeons by the bucket-load at the batter. Nik was swatting them with a bokken, as god forbid he dulled his precious katanas on anything that wasn’t a spinal cord. I leaned against the wall and watched, hands jammed into my pockets. “Enjoying yourself there?”

“Immensely.”

“That a kind of meditation thingy?”

“It was until you started talking.”

Niko swatted some more pigeons. The shattered clay rained down on the floor with little pings. A small mound was piling up around him, yet his feet made no noise as he pranced about. 

“What did you do with Loki?”

“Cuffed him to the bed.”

“You’ve spent too much time with Robin.”

I choked, sputtering, “The hell—what—with that litt—you are _evil.”_

“I do try.”

A little counter to the side of the cage was keeping track of the number of pigeons smote. It was well past one hundred. “Who’s got the highest score on that thing?”

“Agent Romanoff.”

“You’re smashing it to smithereens, aren’t you.”

“Don’t be rude, Cal.”

I shrugged. “Hey, it’s what houseguests do, right? Come in and take over all your stuff?”

Niko swatted the next pigeon so that it veered at me. 

I ducked, and it smashed into the wall where my forehead had been. “You asshole.”

He said nothing, just waited with that big brother well of patience. The kind that had pounded in what survival instincts I had. 

I grimaced. “I’m not a therapist, Nik.”

“I do believe that’s called having the inmates running the asylum.”

“Ha ha. You’re hilarious. Go grab a mic and a drum set. The guy has issues, Nik. Like, PTSD-sized issues. Fucking Antarctica. He acts like a mouse surrounded by sadistic cats—‘cept he’s got fangs just like the rest of us crazy fuckers. Damn big ones. But he forgets about ‘em until he’s gotten backed into a corner.”

Niko gave me a knowing look over his shoulder, the bokken never faltering. The show-off.

I scowled. “ _I_ always knew I had fangs.” And that they were made of metal. Sophia’d never let a day go by without telling me that.

“This is just babsitting, little brother. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.”

I thumped my head back against the wall. “Yeah, right.” Because our jobs never got complicated. Of course not. Just like Buffy never got attacked by fucking vampires.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha, still on time! 
> 
> Thank you all for the kudos, comments, and support. And AWESOME fanart! Seriously, that made our week. 
> 
> Enjoy!

_“Good morning, Mr. Leandros, Mr. Loki. SHIELD has requested your presence at their headquarters at 9:30am.”_

I cracked an eye to look at the digital display, then scowled, reclosing the eye. “Then why don’t you wake us up at 9:29 and we can just gate there. And 9:30, seriously? Who are these people, fucking songbirds?”

_“Both you and Mr. Loki require sustenance, and for this first visit, the Director would like you to arrive by mechanical transport. A quinjet will arrive to pick you up at 9:00am.”_

I shoved my face deeper into my pillow. A chain jangled. “Not you fucking too.”

“I do not know about you, mortal, but I prefer to relieve myself in the proper receptacle.”

Grumbling, I swiped up the key and hobbled over to unlock the cuffs. The alien didn’t even nod, just got off the bed and wandered into the bathroom. I changed into jeans and a t-shirt with my eyes closed and flopped back down on the bed for just a moment longer. 

I woke up to Loki yelping. 

I was upright and pointing a gun in his direction before my eyes had fully opened. When they did, the sight that greeted me was the alien crouched on the floor by the hall door, swearing as he shook his hand like he wanted to detach it from his body. “Thought you’d catch the drop on me, did you?”

_“Fjandinn blóðug hurðarhún, getur það brenna í Helheim í þúsund ár og skilst út með dreka.”_

“I am not Robin. I only speak three languages: English, Sarcasm, and Profanity.”

 _“The fjandinn blóðug door handle!_ It has been imbued with lightning!”

“…Jarvy?”

_“Mr. Loki means that the doorknob to your room has been electrified. Currently, it is approximately half an amp.”_

I glanced up at the speaker as I tucked the gun into the waistband of my jeans. “And which motherfucker was crazy enough to do that? Isn’t that enough to stop someone’s heart?” I vaguely remembered Nik mentioning something like that when he was learning how to make DIY bombs. It was our first year on the run and we were desperate. 

_“I apologize, privacy protocols have been enacted. As for the current, Mr. Thor has shown considerable immunity to electric shocks and it was assumed to be the case for Mr. Loki.”_

“Jesus Christ, what if I had opened the damn door?”

_"I would have noticed and reduced the current down to humanly-safe levels."_

“You are all damn lucky Thor’s been shooting off lightning since he was seventy, or I would be a bit more pissed at this moment.” Houdini levered himself out of his crouch and death-glared at the doorknob. 

I grabbed one of my sneakers and pressed the handle down with its sole. I used the shoe to open the door too, just to be on the safe side. 

And immediately ducked when I saw movement in my periphery, once again before identifying it. Niko had worked very hard at drilling that one into me. Run first, look from safe distance. Curious little fuckers get their heads bit off. 

And that was how Loki ended up with a faceful of pepper spray immediately after being electrocuted. Police-grade pepper spray. Right in the kisser.

The swearing was back, acerbic and obscene and downright bloodthirsty.

It was quite impressive actually. 

_“There is a decontamination station one floor down,”_ JARVIS said helpfully. 

Loki didn’t seem to hear the AI over his own raving, but anyone who can swear that beautifully doesn’t deserve to be in pain. I found the station on a wall display and gated us both down, where I located the eye cleanser and without any further ado pushed Loki into it. The swearing paused for a moment as he sputtered. After a few minutes, he pushed away and pressed his face onto a towel hanging nearby, patting gently around his eyes. 

The skin around his eyes was slightly puffed, reddened, clearly in discomfort, but being the cheeky bastard I was, I asked anyway. “Better?”

“I will maim you.”

“Sure you will.” I clapped Houdini on the shoulder and gated us up to the kitchen. I required sugar. 

And lo and behold, there was another bowl of donuts on the breakfast bar. And the Peppy Breakfast Club, all with their cups of uppity tea, though this morning their ranks were augmented by Hawkeye, who was hoarding coffee.

“Somebody’s a sore loser,” I sing-songed as I sat down. Loki sent the archer a glare that promised gills and a tail if he just had his magic, and took a seat as far away from him as possible, giving the chair a once-over before trusting himself to it. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the SHIELD agent/spysassin said, face as smooth as glass. “Why do his eyes look like peeled tomatoes?”

“Morning disagreed with him.” I picked up a chocolate donut and eyed it. Something about it smelled off. You’d think Stark would spring for fresh donuts as it wasn’t like he needed a budget. I shrugged. I didn’t have a human immune system, so whatever was up with it would be fine. I’d eaten weeks-old hotdogs from the fridge once. Niko’d almost made me drink bleach. I took a bite—and spat the mouthful out across the bar where it landed on Nik’s plate. He froze in the middle of a sentence and gave me the Brotherly Look of Guaranteed Atomic Wedgie. I ignored it this once and grabbed his tea, rinsing and spitting. I put the mug back in front of him and picked up the donut, sniffing at my bite mark. 

Niko wrinkled his nose and pushed the mug away with a fingertip. 

I dropped the donut with disgust. “There is _hot pepper juice_ in this donut.” I sniffed the bowl. “There _is hot pepper juice in all of the donuts._ What sadistic bastard ruins _donuts?”_

“And a good morning to you.” Hawkeye gathered up his coffee and left, humming off key under his breath. 

“Fuck it,” I said. “If I can’t have sugar, I will at least have grease.” And I gated me and Houdini down to the McDonalds on the third floor. 

The SHIELD quinjet found us on the roof finishing off breakfast. Well, Loki was. I had long since graduated onto stealing his hashbrowns. The SHIELD agents, all geared up for a combat zone, didn’t quite know what to do with an alien war criminal eating his third McDonald’s Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Bagel while attempting to defend his greasy hashbrowns, so they just pointed their guns at us and pointed us to a seat. By the time we were actually flying over New York, I had succeeded in stealing a hashbrown and chewed it slowly and with reverence. Next time, I was taking him out for chili cheese dogs. Nothing can beat the New Yorker chili cheese dog. 

Loki was still glaring at me as we walked into a conference room in SHIELD’s spiffy HQ. The Vigil’s New York branch was based out of an old church, one of those giant sprawling Gothic monstrosities so old its arthritis had arthritis. Maybe it’s like that saying about how people start looking like their dogs. SHIELD babysits maniac gear-heads and advanced aliens, ergo, chrome and glass building built by a modern dipshit artist. Exactly how do you avoid snipers when everything’s a fucking window? The Vigil mops up after vampires and werewolves, so they have the creepy old decrepit cemeteries and grime from the Cretaceous Period. 

“So, Patchy, Mrs. Krabapple,” I said, plopping into a swivel chair and nodding at the two black-clad agents on the other side of the table. “Who are you and why should I care? Oh wait, scratch that. Why should I care and who are you?”

The black pirate raised his lone eyebrow. Robin did that look occasionally, except his came with a side of exasperated “you, kid, seriously need to get laid.” Even after I did. Apparently getting laid is like getting drunk in college: it doesn’t count unless you do it all the time. “I’m Director Fury. This is my deputy, Agent Hill.”

“Ah yes.” Loki sat in the chair at the head of the table, equi-distant from all of us. “We had a charming little chat on your helicarrier.”

“I think the proper term is infuriating. I trust this conversation will go differently.”

Houdini shrugged disinterestedly.

Patchy rested his elbows on the table and folded his fingers together, eye boring down on the alien. “You are here for reparations. Obviously, the majority of the damage from your little invasion has been cleaned up, and what remains hardly requires your aid. Instead, you will answer all our questions to the best of your ability and will refrain from lying or obfuscation. Until further notice, you will be here, at Headquarters, during work hours, every day, with your babysitter in tow who will teleport you to this room, no detours.” He glared with his little beady eye at the both of us. “Now, let’s start with your ‘army.’ Where do they come from?”

Loki sighed like a disappointed teacher but answered the question. The grilling continued on from there, boring meticulous question after boring meticulous question. God, these people were anal. Who _cared_ how those aliens reproduced or how their fucking eyes worked?

After forty-five minutes, I stood up. 

Mrs. Krabapple looked at me. “Mr. Leandros?”

“Bathroom,” I said, walking to the door. 

“Down the hall to the left.” And she went back to the tablet where she was taking no doubt meticulous, OCD notes.

I saluted her with a finger and left without a backward glance. 

The conference room was not on one of the more public floors, as no one apparently trusted Loki without an armed escort, which meant there was no entertainment to be had. The agents on either side of the conference room door watched me like lasers as I sauntered down the hall and opened the door to the stairs. There was probably a café or cafeteria or something on the ground floor. I can’t imagine so many suits holding up in one place without a reliable supply of caffeine. 

Ha, I was right! A Starbucks just off the lobby. 

I ordered three donuts, made as they were _supposed_ to be—delicious sugary coma—and ate them with relish in a corner booth where my back and one flank were covered and I could see the rest of the patrons. Interesting place, this. Even the obviously pencil-pushers looked fit. Probably mandatory employee PT or something wholesome and militarian like that. And everyone had badges pinned to their lapels. Hell, even I did. The visitor badges had been pushed on us ruthlessly when we’d landed—though I noticed mine was red instead of blue. I tugged it off and examined it. “Consultant—Honorary Level 7.” Interesting. 

I shoved the last of my donut into my mouth and got up to go exploring. 

The stairwell had had a little map bolted to the wall by the door. This being the Headquarters of the mystical equivalent of the CIA, nothing much was labelled besides the lobby, Starbucks, the cafeteria, and the doors to the detached parking garage. Everything else was color-coded without a key. I’d also noticed on the way down that all the doors had magnetized locks with card readers. I slapped my visitor’s badge against my hand for a moment as I considered my options, then shrugged and trotted downwards. Best to look in the basement first. Everyone always hides their most secret things in the basements. Humans are like rats. They hoard things underground because somehow they think that makes them sneaky bastards. They forget there are things like snakes and weasels.

The stairwell went down three sublevels before a giant metal door blocked the way. I tried my badge on the card reader. Nothing. Then it blinked green and the door unlocked itself. Sweet.

I pulled it open and happily strolled inside. 

It was a lab. White walls and gleaming stainless steel practically smothered in the chemical smell of antiseptic and dye. Machines whirred. Screens lit up the space. Everyone not in a lab coat was in a suit. Either jacket and tie or that spandex-Kevlar cat suit thing Mrs. Krabapple had been in. 

Three tables over, a tall jacket-and-tie who had been leaning against a computer bank, mediating between two scientists bickering in posh non-American accents, straightened. He took in my black leather jacket, scuffed jeans, and ratty sneakers and frowned, his dark eyes growing even more broody, if that was possible. “Excuse me, who are you? Do you have clearance to be down here?” The two scientists, seeing me, attempted to oh-so-discretely switch the display on the screen from schematics to kitten videos.

I flashed him a grin and my badge. “Sure, buddy. Ignore me, just keep swimming.”

Now the guy was really confused. “Honorary Level 7.” He looked me up and down, probably trying to find the zipper in the costume. “What exactly makes you _Honorary_ Level 7?”

“Mmm, living with the Avengers and babysitting an alien princeling might do it.” I ambled down the aisles. Bunch of science stuff. I didn’t understand any of it, but it was secret spy stuff so something about it had to be interesting. Plus, judging from how the guy was now dogging my every footstep, I apparently was Not Supposed To Be Here, which just made it all the more vital that I see everything. 

Reverse psychology and all that shit. 

“Does Director Fury know you’re here?”

Ignoring the lackey, I opened a fridge to discover jars full of eyeballs. Eyeballs that didn’t have any whites and actually glowed a sickly green/yellow color slightly, vaguely reptilian. Mr. Prissy slammed the door shut.

“Just because you can get in here does not mean you get to go poking around.”

“Tomato, tomahto,” I scoffed. A slight puff of frigid air drifted along my neck and I smelled oil, metal, old flesh. Well preserved old flesh, but still, old enough for me to wrinkle my nose slightly. The smell was coming from behind a door in the back corner of the room. It had one of those spindly wheel doorknobs thingies you see on bank vaults. Now _that_ was interesting. Definitely _super_ -secret spy stuff. I sauntered over.

“Don’t—” the guy warned, racing after me.

I swiped my card along the reader. It beeped red and an alarm starting blaring. Everyone in the room froze. 

“—do that,” the guy finished. “You have to be SHIELD personnel to get in there.” He strode up and bunched a code into the keypad, shutting the alarm off. 

I humphed. “Talk about lame. Now I have to see it. What, are you hiding the dead bodies of politicians back there or something?”

I gated myself to the other side of the door—and looked up into the face of one of those monstrous space whales that had terrorized the city a year ago. It was hanging from the ceiling cradled in a loose steel net, parts of its skin peeled back and pinned in place to expose the tissues and organs underneath. Some of the freaky hovercraft were also hung from the ceiling to the left, and a bank of morgue fridges on the right held the dead bodies of some of the aliens themselves. Metal was implanted straight into their flesh. On the part of the space whale, it almost seemed to grow out organically, like natural armor. Huh. So that was what I was smelling. 

A new alarm started blaring, shutting down all the lighting except for the whirling red siren lights, which made the whole place look like a set from a B horror film. I could hear frantic shouting from the other side of the door. I sighed. Some people just don’t know how to share. 

The door swung open—they’d probably wanted to slam it open but it was just too damn heavy for any kind of dramatic effect—and all the agents from the science lab poured in, guns up and ready. 

I scowled at them. “Really? The whole SWAT-FBI thing? _Really?_ What do I look like, a mass murderer?”

“Sir,” Mr. Prissy called, gun aimed at my kneecap, “I need you to put your hands in the air and walk towards me, slowly.”

I folded my arms and thought about it. 

_“Sir.”_

“Oh alright fine.” I gated to the open doorway behind them all. The guns all pointed hectically around the room before they found me. “This better? What, you don’t want me out of the room?” I shrugged and gated on top of the space whale. On a piece of the metal armor, not the preserved flesh. I didn’t need that smell clinging to my sneakers all goddamn day. “Is _this_ better?”

I grinned down at all their outraged faces. Now this was going to be entertaining. 

I don’t know how long I played with the spy agents. I don’t carry a wrist watch—what kind of loser does these days?—and clocks were apparently considered optional décor here. Long enough for the agents to try shooting me, not that that got them anywhere. Back-up was called, back-up arrived, back-up did jack shit. I gated around and among them in the dark, tugging on sleeves and straps, jabbing at the backs of their knees. When someone finally—fucking _finally,_ my ears were dying there—turned the alarm off and the lights came back on, I retreated back on top the space whale and pried off little bits of skin and metal and pelted the agents with them. Like morbid confetti. 

“Cal.” 

I looked up from aiming and grinned at the door. “Hey, Cyrano. Come to join the party? I thought you were teaching booger-eaters how to break cement or something today.”

Down on the floor, framed perfectly in the doorway, Niko shook his head. “Honestly. This is like desecrating a museum. Get down.”

“Technically it’s a super-secret government laboratory where they experiment on aliens.”

Niko’s eyebrow rose a precise half inch. 

I sighed dramatically and gated down in front of him. “Yeah yeah, I get it. Party pooper.”

Niko whacked me on the back of the head. “I can send you to work by yourself. I should be able to send you out babysitting without worrying that you’ll pee on someone.”

“Gee, thanks. Really feeling the love.”

He whapped me on the head again, nodded to the agents who looked to be suffering from light whiplash, and strode out of the room. I waved cheerfully to the agents and followed. 

The Avengers’ liaison—a guy who looked, sounded, even _smelled_ bland and perfectly ordinary—was waiting, feet shoulder-width apart and hands clasped together in front—the lackey-with-security-training patented stance so overused it was practically cliché and not intimidating at all. Agent Something-or-other. I couldn’t remember his name. His bland appearance was affecting my memory. 

“Mr. Leandros,” he said, directing his comment to me, “we would appreciate it if you remained on the same side of a locked door as you began on. We also ask that you remain within five meters of Loki at all times while outside the tower.”

“Oh come on. I got the damn tablet.” I pulled it out of my pocket and gave the gadget a little shake. “I would have known if he’d gone somewhere. Which, by the way, he didn’t.”

“We would prefer if you are as little distracted as possible.” The liaison handed Niko a SHIELD tablet. “Director Fury has authorized you for access to any security footage your brother or Loki may appear on while they are in the building. You may access it remotely from that tablet.”

Niko did just that, and the tablet screen lit up, splitting into two windows. The one on the left showed us from the camera up in the corner behind us, and the right showed Loki back in the conference room manipulating what looked like a hologram of a star field for a whole crowd of agents. Stark was there too. Well, that explained how Cyrano got here so fast without a gate. 

“GPS tracking is also enabled so that if the need should arise, you can step in,” the liaison continued. “The feeds will show the areas Mr. Leandros or Loki are in and only that, but security clearance will not be a problem.”

“Thank you, Agent Coulson,” Niko told him. “This is highly preferable to the tracking device in his phone.”

I scowled at the lot of them. “I don’t need supervision. I’m not fucking five.”

“Recent events suggest otherwise,” the liaison said blandly. “And if this turns out to insufficient, I’ll install tracking devices in your teeth.” He turned to the door. “If we could move this back upstairs?”

Nik gestured for me to go first and I went with a sigh. Sticks in the mud, all of them. 

I was then forced to sit through several more boring hours as new agents pelted Loki with questions about the number of different alien species and how many of them had magic and what could they do with it. At least they’d gotten sandwiches delivered. I occupied myself with slowly shredding a bun to pieces. 

Niko loomed behind my chair the whole time, mostly silent but occasionally he asked a question that made all the agents pause and give him appraising looks. 

Loki answered any and all questions regardless of who asked them or in what tone in the same bland manner. Like he was reading off stock prices to kindergarteners. I couldn’t help but notice though—as I had fucking nothing _else_ to do—that his fingers would twitch, just ever so slightly, when magic was brought up, and it just become more and more pronounced as the interrogation as a whole moved on to magic, until his finger was drumming a fast staccato on his knee. Every line in his body was tense. 

I leaned back in my chair, resting my feet on the table for the agents to glare at, and settled in to wait. 

It didn’t take long, which, thank fuck, ‘cause this had gone on long enough. 

Someone came to remove the empty sandwich platters, eventually replacing them with a coffee service. It was in the brief pause where everyone was pouring themselves coffee that Houdini finally snapped and teleported. 

“Oh come on,” I said to the room full of people looking like they had been personally betrayed. “You can’t tell me you weren’t expecting that. What kind of super spies are you?”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be, Mr. Leandros?” Mrs. Krabapple asked.

Shrugging, I lazily pulled out the tablet and checked the tracking app. Just as lazily, I scrolled through it, fiddling with the map controls and settings. The SHIELD lackeys glared at me. Niko exhaled. “Cal…”

I took my feet off the tabletop and stood, stretching thoroughly to work out any kinks. These chairs might as well have been made of concrete and even I, with my mastery of slouching, couldn’t survive sitting in them for hours unscathed. Only when I felt good and ready did I gate away.

Loki was whirling in the small, sparse clearing, hurling bolts of green energy from his hand at saplings, boulders, anything that moved in the breeze. The bolts danced in the dark night sky like a fae aurora and lit the clearing, sparking along branches and moss like glow sticks at a rave. I leaned against the tree by his mysterious leather sack. It was like watching one of Nik’s katas—beautiful and elegant, but deadly, fierce, and blindingly fast. Feral and magnificent at the same time. 

A last blast of energy exploded a boulder high into sky and the pieces rained down into the moss and small brook. In the silence afterward, nearly deafening after all that violence and noise, Loki’s breathing, just skirting the edge of harsh, sounded like the low purr of a disturbed hunting cat. The sharp scent of broken pine and aspen, and bruised moss blended seamlessly with Loki’s scent of ice-covered river, winter in a bottle. 

“I like destroying things too,” I said. Loki’s spine stiffened but he didn’t turn. “It’s wonderfully cathartic, especially if I don’t have to clean any of it up. There are actual stores where you can pay to smash stuff, but it totally defeats the point if you’re allowed.”

Loki said nothing. 

Now that death didn’t seem quite so imminent, a few brave fireflies decided to try the air. Their glow was nearly the same color as Loki’s energy bolts.

“I thought your magic was sealed.”

“I have my ways.”

I peered inside the leather sack. “Hmm, like an amulet or something? I’m getting really tired of that look,” I added as he peered over his shoulder at me, surprised. “I haven’t spent my whole life with my head up my ass. I know it’s possible to store power in things. Nik and I have had to track down a few for various…clients. So.” I folded my arms and sat down on a root. “Something in the meeting tick you off?”

Loki turned his head away. “It is no concern of yours.”

“The lone suffering figure really isn’t your thing.”

Loki laughed harshly. “And what would you know of that?”

“What makes you think I don’t?”

Loki glanced back at me, his eye nothing more than a faint glitter in the dark. I held his gaze. I didn’t know what he was looking for or if he would see it through the blackness, but he was searching as desperately as Nik had once dug through rubble under a bridge. 

The faint glitter disappeared and his body contracted in the night, pulling tighter around itself as he breathed in.

“…I cannot stand it. My magic has been trapped from me for so long…it’s like locking a musician in a room and placing his instrument just on the other side of the glass—see but cannot touch, never touch…”

I went back over the day and what I’d been told about this gig. “Ah, got it. They’ll ask you questions but they won’t unlock that cuff.”

Cloth rustled. “It’s maddening.”

I nodded and rested my head back against the tree. “Life is a real bitch, you know?”

Loki growled, “I do not _understand_ you. I _tried to conquer you.”_

I rolled my eyes. “And I once tried to destroy the world and in the process slaughter every living thing on it. We’ve been over this. Get over yourself.”

Once again Loki said nothing. Just tilted his head to look at the stars.

After a while he said, “I do not want to go back there.”

“Fuck that. Patchy said ‘business hours’ and this tablet says it’s definitely past five back home. And I don’t know ‘bout you, but that little art deco sandwich was useless.”

Loki thought about it. “I could deign to eat something.”

I pushed myself to my feet. “Great, it’s fucking cold here. Let’s go, Your Majesty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to take a moment to explain a few things about Agents of SHIELD in this AU: 1) I am keeping Ward firmly a Good Guy, as I liked him before he was evil. 2) TWS and the second half of the first season did not happen here as it has already been a year since the invasion of New York 
> 
> All translations were done with Google Translate, which we all know is not the best resource in the world, but we know no one who is fluent in Icelandic or knowledgeable in Old Norse and I needed a long string of context-unique curses, so what are you gonna do?
> 
> The idea of Cal giving Fury and Hill nicknames from SpongeBob and the Simpsons amuses me to no end (though I would prefer if Patchy had a more original name…).
> 
> To give credit where credit is due: Cal's line about English is taken from a t-shirt I saw at a dog park--which is very much in character for him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your comments and support! 
> 
> Enjoy ^ ^

Our sudden appearance in the common room interrupted the pacing of a short brunette. She squeaked, flapping her hands like a demented dodo, then recognized us and instantly her expression turned steely. She crossed her arms over her more than ample bust and glared from behind her glasses. 

“I realize this is Tony Stark’s tower, home to the Avengers and other crazy powered people who do dangerous stupid shit for a living, but there is a line. A very definite line. So. Which of you two shitheads _electrified_ my doorknob?”

I blinked down at her. “Your doorknob.” Then I took a sniff and it all made sense. Her scent was the same citrus spice dusted over everything in our room. I hadn’t bothered to comment on it yet because the scent had been a few days old and other more important things—like fetching aliens back from the hinterlands—had been going on. “It’s not our fault. In fact, none of that shit is our fault. Stark is the one who commandeered your room, and Hawkboy wired your doorknob.”

“That little motherfucker,” she growled. “This hair is naturally curly. Do you know what that doorknob did to it? I was a goddamn nimbus cloud. Come on.” She swiveled and stomped toward the elevator. “You’re going to help me set up a temp bed while I think up ways to make Clint suffer.”

“No can do. We’re kinda starving here—”

“Can it, pal. Bunking you in my room may be the ‘most strategic option’,” she air quoted, “but I’m still sure as hell going to make you pay for the privilege. Seriously,” she muttered to herself. “I was only in _Boston._ The _least_ they could do was fucking call.”

I sighed, dreams of pizza and beer fading, and shuffled after her, hooking a finger into Loki’s shirt to drag his reluctant ass with me. 

A few minutes later I was peeking around a metric ton of blankets and pillows in a futile attempt to avoid walking into walls. Loki had another ton. We were apparently supplying a field hospital, not making up the couch in our floor’s small TV lounge. 

The woman—who had introduced herself as Darcy ‘Eyes Up Here’ Lewis, Scientist Wrangler Extraordinaire, which made just as much sense as the rest of this—had us make three—count ‘em, _three_ —of these trips while she wedged brooms into the sides of the couch.

“That should do it,” she said, standing back to examine her handiwork. She shooed her hands at us. “Well, go on. Don’t you know a fort when you see one? Oh, well, maybe not you, alien dude. You’re excused. But this bozo is not.”

“Of course I know about couch forts,” I retorted. “I just don’t see why you’re building one.”

“’Cause it’s fun, duh. And if I’m going to be tossed out of my own room for an indefinite time, I get to completely take over the common area. Fair’s fair. Now, alien dude Mr. Loki whatever, help your babysitter drape the blankets. Heavier ones on the bottom, lighter ones on top.” Darcy set about building a pillow wall along the front of the couch, layering the pillows like bricks. “Either of you ever crawled through air ducts before?”

“Not generally in my job description. Why?”

“J-man, how long till Clint gets back?”

_“Agent Barton and the others currently at SHIELD Headquarters are in a debriefing with the Director. Sir has decided he would rather be chauffeured then fly himself back, so they should all be on the quinjet in approximately a half hour.”_

“Awesome-sauce! Here’s what I’m thinking—” 

We finished constructing the fort as Darcy outlined her revenge. It was damn solid for something made from pillows and broomsticks and dark as hell inside. Her revenge was just as solid and deviously thought out. Plus, I got to go crawling around the air ducts like James Bond. Even Houdini was getting into it, offering ways to make the whole thing delightfully awful. 

We finished preparations with forty minutes to spare before the Avengers arrived. Except for the Hulk, who was apparently holed up with an experiment down in his lab and didn’t expect to see daylight for another two days. 

“Okay, J-man,” Darcy said as we put the last of the supplies away. “You know the drill.”

 _“I would rather prefer that I didn’t,”_ the AI sighed. _“It would mean fewer calls to the cleaners and grocers. In an attempt I realize is futile, may I remind you that your prank war has only been over for ten days?”_

“That was before Clint electrified my doorknob.” Darcy dusted the glitter residue off her hands and grinned at us. “Good work, guys. Especially you, Lokey-dokey.”

I snickered as Loki’s eyebrows slowly rose to his hairline. “Excuse me?”

“Lokey-dokey. You know, like Okie-dokie?” Loki just stared at her down his nose. “Oh yeah, right. Alien. No cultural reference. Boo! We’re going to fix this right now.” She whipped out her phone, speed-dialed someone, and then proceeded to order a shit-ton of food. Hanging up, she fiddled with Google Maps then flashed me the screen. “Teleport there and pick up the food for me. The both of you. I ordered food for the conquering heroes as well, and Steve and Thor eat like they’re dying.” 

The restaurant was a little Mongolian place five miles away. A hole in the wall, it looked like. “You sure such a dinky place has enough food for you all?”

“S’cool, s’cool. Stark has a running tab with them. Go, go.”

“It won’t be ready!”

Darcy circled her face with a finger. “Look at this face. Does it look like I care?”

I rubbed at my face. “Good fucking god, I know a peri who would love to meet you. Right. Houdini.” I grabbed his arm and gated us away. 

It was only a five minute wait. Go figure. Not even pizza gets made that fast. They must just make pots of the stuff all day long. The cashier grinned knowingly at us, then produced two boxes the length of my arm, each full of smaller to-go cartons. _Boxes._

“This is insane,” I told Darcy when we gated back to the TV lounge. She wasn’t there. “Jarvy?”

_“Main common area.”_

“This is insane,” I repeated as I gated us up there. 

Darcy looked over her shoulder from where she was gathering silverware. “That’s completely normal. And besides, Tony is the definition of insane and he runs this place so what did you expect? Put it on the table and let’s eat! I’m starving. Wait.” We paused by the table and looked at her warily. “Lokey-dokey, there anything you can’t eat? I mean, you’re an alien and all and this is Earth food. Can you even digest this?”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Does Thor?”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, never mind. Seriously, dude, I think your brother has a stomach condition. Thought that ever since I met him.”

Darcy kept up a constant stream of chatter as we dug through the boxes and began eating. I was impressed. The woman could give Robin a run for his money and that was saying something. Not only did he _love_ to talk, but he fucking oodles of money since he’d been stealing it since the concept was invented. As promised, a lot of the chatter was on pop culture with special loving attention given to music, movies, and children’s games, but she also asked a lot of questions. Like where I was from and what my childhood was like and did I like Pixar? All of which I lied about, except Pixar. I had seen _Finding Nemo_ because someone Nik and I had guarded once was fucking obsessed with that movie, but that was it. I was immediately informed my brain was stunted and needed emergency injections of Woody and Wall-E. 

If she saw me in the mornings, she’d think twice about that woody.

Throughout all of this, she kept passing cartons Houdini’s way, saying, “I think you’ll like this one—it’s got lotus root in it.” Or “This dish is the most awesome thing ever, you’ve _gotta_ try it.”

Loki glanced between the two of us. “Are all mortals as stupid as the two of you? Yes yes,” he said as I opened my mouth, “you’re evil too, I am aware. But you.” He pointed to Darcy. “Why are you not up in arms over my presence? Why do you keep offering me _food?”_

“Well, first off, I’m just a regular person. I don’t go around with guns in my pockets like certain other people whose names I will not mention but which start with a C, N, and P. And dude, you’re like, freakishly thin. Supermodels have more meat than you. And these taste good. What’s not to share?”

“Maybe you have not understood me correctly.” Loki laid his hands on the table. “I killed people. Many of your own but I also once tried to destroy a planet. I—”

“Did you succeed?”

“I—what?”

Darcy took a bite of beef. “Did you actually destroy the planet?”

“Wha—no—”

“Do you have any plans to destroy other planets?”

“No—” Houdini was starting to look a little bulldozed there. I grabbed a carton and leaned back to enjoy the show. 

“Do you have any plans to take over the Earth?”

“No—”

“How about the universe? Want to rule that?”

“N—why would I want to do that? It would be a tremendous waste of time.”

Darcy shrugged and speared a piece of broccoli. “Then yeah, whatever. Sure, you’ve done bad things but you don’t want to do them again, and rehabilitation is a corner stone of our judicial system. Or it should be anyway. I’ve written term papers on it. Besides, Jane says you saved her life, so I’m prepared to like you. ”

“Jane,” I muttered, thinking. “As in Thor’s Jane?”

“Yup,” Darcy answered cheerfully. “I’m her research assistant.”

“Not bad, Houdini. I can’t even say that about Promise, though she’s so deadly that the day I need to do that is a day we are seriously in deep shit.”

Loki glared at me.

“Oh!” Darcy popped up like she’d heard an ice cream truck. “And I saw you in London with Thor, taking on all those freaky masked people. So you helped save the world too, so in my opinion you’ve broke even.”

I chewed thoughtfully. “That is not an argument I’ve heard before.”

Loki glanced at me, then surveyed the array of open cartons before poking the contents of one with a fork. Darcy started lecturing about proper nutrition and the importance of fiber—at which point I eyed her carefully and decided never to let her and Niko in the same kitchen—and didn’t let up until we were stacking the remaining cartons in the microwave to keep warm, Jarvis having informed us that the Avengers were about twenty minutes out. Loki and I turned around to discover Darcy standing behind us with an armful of brushes, hair binders, and spritzers, smiling brightly. “Come watch a movie with me.” 

Said the spider to the flies. 

And that was how the Avengers—and my goddamn brother—came home to me sitting on the floor with my back to the couch and Darcy enthusiastically braiding my hair, Wall-E playing with a fire extinguisher on Stark’s colossal TV. Loki had already suffered through a ‘Legolas’ and was sulking on the far couch, leaving it in under pain of nail polish. 

All conversation between the Avengers ground to a halt and they just stared. Nik circled around the couch to examine Darcy’s handiwork. I tried to give him the stink eye without moving my head, as Darcy had pins and was not afraid to use them. “Not a word,” I said. “Not. A fucking. _Word.”_

Niko shook his head solemnly, then pulled out his phone and took a picture. 

“No! Don’t you dare—” his thumb tapped a final button. “….you already sent it to Robin, didn’t you.”

“And Promise. She’ll be delighted.”

“I will spike your wheatgrass juice.”

“You would need to find it first, little brother.” He tucked his phone back into its pocket and walked to the kitchen to assess the standards of dinner. 

“Hi, Clint,” Darcy said as she pinned a partial braid behind my ear. “Long time no see. Want to know what I got you from Boston?”

Hawkeye scrunched his brow. “Why? I didn’t ask for—” The blood drained from his face. He muttered something indecipherable and disappeared down the hall. 

“Damn, girl,” Stark said, watching him go. Cap just shook his head with a sigh while Widow actually smirked. The two of them left for the kitchen. “You tell Thor you’re back yet?”

“Nope. I just got back two hours ago, and they’d already gone off to a romantic dinner. Tablecloth and candle, the whole shebang. Now, Mr. Stark, what are you going to pay me for the rent of my room?”

Stark winced. “….personal coffee machine?” 

“Door Number Two?”

“Personal robot? JARVIS on your phone?”

She paused in her torture administration to give what I assume was a caustic glare Stark’s way. I felt strangely sorry for the guy, even though he’d totally brought this on himself. 

“Unlimited 24-hour shopping spree?”

“Acceptable.”

Stark escaped to the kitchen.

Darcy kept me captive for the next thirty minutes, then made the two of us sit on the couch and pose for pictures. And by ‘pose’ I meant ‘not scowl’ as there was no way in hell I was doing anything else. When she had a couple dozen, the woman released us and we retreated with all due haste back to our room. Though not before a yell echoed down from a vent, shortly followed by a fall of pink and purple glitter.

“Got any pictures, Jarvy?”

_“Video as well. Which would you prefer?”_

 

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

 

The next morning JARVIS did the prudent thing and only woke us up fifteen minutes before we had to be at SHIELD. The pirate was not waiting for us in the conference room, instead having been replaced by the two scientists from the day before—and their annoying lackey, Mr. Prissy, who was leaning against the wall behind them and glowering like a kid forced to do his chores. 

“Morning!” the girl said brightly in her chipper British accent. Much too brightly for anything before lunch. I scowled at her on reflex. “I hope you don’t mind, but you’ll be working with us instead of the Director for the foreseeable future. It was decided that SHIELD needs a better understanding of how magic works before we can come up with any feasible defense strategies. The Vigil is not terribly forthcoming about these sorts of things.”

I snorted. “Like that’s not the understatement of the century.” In my periphery, Loki let out a barely perceptible breath. “So, who are you sorry SOBs and what did you do to get saddled with us?”

“I’m Agent Ward,” Mr. Prissy said. “I’m here for security and oversight as FitzSimmons tend to get distracted when faced with new shiny things.”

“We do not!” the two scientists said in unison. 

“That’s Stark you’re talking about,” the other guy said, the Scottish accent making him sound somehow even more indignant. 

“And besides,” the girl said, “that explosion was just a fluke. We had no way of knowing those cells would react to tungsten molecules in quite that fashion. Jemma Simmons,” she said with a bright smile and hand wave. 

“Leo Fitz,” the guy said. “I’m engineering and she does biochem.”

“So you’re making him a lab rat.”

Simmons winced. “More like a willing participant? This may be part of his community service but we’re not going to do unethical experiments or coerce him into unsafe or unsterile lab conditions. No offense,” she added, turning to Loki, “but not only is that morally reprehensible but it does not produce good science.”

Loki shrugged. 

“Seriously?” I asked. “You’re telling me you have no problem with them slapping electrodes on you and poking you with things? Not to mention it’ll be boring as all fuck and they’ll talk in words that are obviously a dead language?”

Mr. Prissy snorted. I flipped him off. 

Once again, Loki just shrugged. “There are worse things. At the very least they are people of intellect and not more politicians fearful of anything beyond their borders or comprehension.”

“Fine, whatever. It’s your life, buddy.”

“Great!” Simmons bounced up from her seat and held the door open. Fitz followed and Mr. Prissy waited to take the rear. I racked my eye over him as I passed. Three guns, two in a double shoulder holster and one in his boot under his pant leg, plus a Taser-like thing hooked to his belt. Two knives up his sleeves, as far as I could see, but he probably had more. Knives were very hideable. They were annoying like that. I currently only had one; I would much rather have a gun, but there are creatures that shake off bullets like raindrops. It was just better to decapitate those. And besides, _this_ knife was my serrated, heavy-duty combat knife. The fucker could cut through bone like tissue paper. 

Neither of the two scientists, bickering amiably about equipment as they led us down the hall, had anything remotely weapon-like on their persons. Not that I had really expected anything else. 

The lab they led us to was not the one from yesterday. This one was smaller, not behind a secret door, and even under the sterilizing chemicals, it smelled of the two of them. This was obviously their personal clubhouse. It was also all set up for explosives testing. A large space to the side had been cleared, and large durable screens had been erected around it, one with a safety glass window at eye level. Well. That was fucking reassuring. 

I pulled out my phone and texted Nik: _If I die today, it’s not my fault._

And then added: _For once._

“First,” Simmons said, “if you don’t mind, I’d let to get your vitals. Height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, that sort of thing.”

“You will not have anything to compare it to,” Loki said. 

“True, but that’s not the point. I’d like to get baseline numbers to compare to during and after magic-use.”

Loki submitted with reluctance, eyeing each medical device with suspicion before allowing it to touch him. All through this Thing One and Two kept up a constant stream of questions: what was magic, _exactly?_ Did the power come from himself or the environment? Did he use his muscles or his brain to control it? Where there any symptoms to its use? What happened when he over-exerted himself? And so on and so on. This was the part where I had ditched the Vigil. Testing my gating abilities had seemed like a good, practical idea at the time, but I’m a much more hands-on, do-it-and-see-what-happens kind of guy. Nik was the one with the patience to go wading through tedium.

“Okay.” Thing One grabbed a box of adhesive electrodes and jumped up from her seat with way too much pep. It was like perky was her default setting. “Let’s get you set up for a small practical test!” She ushered Loki to the center of the cleared area. “If you would be so kind as to remove your shirt?”

Loki scowled at her. 

“Not for anything improper or anything,” Thing One assured him hurriedly. She dug through the box and pulled out a handful of electrodes. “These have to go on your chest so that we can collect data about what your heart’s doing, and these—” she dug out even _more_ of the fucking things “are just to give us a brief look at your brainwave activity. Not anything too detailed, we just want an overview basically. They don’t hurt. Promise.”

“Personally, I’m just glad she’s not dosing you with ultrasound gel,” Thing Two griped from where he was fiddling with some doohickey device. “Nothing good ever happens when she does that.”

“The woman was pregnant, Fitz—”

“—and you said, don’t worry about it, Fitz, everything will be alright, Fitz—”

“—and I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Oh yeah, sure. I just spent the next week rebuilding Doc and Sleepy from scratch and cleaning the scorch marks off the ceiling, that’s all. No harm done.” He disappeared into the bowels of the machine with a pen light. “None at all.”

Thing One turned to Loki with a blinding smile. “So. Shirt?”

Houdini, for his part, looked mildly amused and removed his long-sleeved t-shirt, one of many JARVIS had had delivered to our room during dinner yesterday. It was strangely exactly his size, of damn nice quality, and clung to his body like a cat hyped up on catnip. Definitely not bought in bulk or from a thrift store, like the ratty t-shirts I owned. I was kinda curious just how much Stark had spent on that. The guy obviously was not as fastidious as Robin, so why bother? And when exactly did he ask for the alien’s shirt size?

My thoughts was then derailed when Loki dropped the shirt. Totally tossed out the window. Out to lunch, may never be back. Nik’s and mine line of work was not exactly painless or full of sunshine and rainbows. We both had scars. I had a chunk of my chest missing, curtesy of a truly fucked up son of a bitch who should have had the decency to stay dead. Nik…Nik had a circle the size of a small pizza over his sternum where Robin’s evil twin—the _goddamn fucking bastard_ —had tried to…Point is, we all had scars, and those were just the flashy recent editions. 

But Houdini here, he took the cake. Burn marks everywhere, licking across his skin and over his shoulders like algae blooms. Puncture marks under his clavicles. Puckers along his arms and chest in groups of four that looked, even with my limited experience, like testing sites. A jagged Y of angry red tissue ran down his whole torso, branches at his shoulders and joining just below his ribcage and trailing down below his navel. More puncture marks marched along either side of it, giving the image of a seam with the stitches ripped out. And then there were the random ones. Little white lines crisscrossed all over, disappearing around to his back. God, did I even want to know what was on his back?

Thing One did a little hiccup. 

“Ah…” Thing Two said, popping back up from his machine, “stop me if I’m wrong here, but aren’t you supposed to be an alien with super-healing abilities?”

Loki’s eyes were dead things. His face a complete blank. “Yes.”

“Right,” Thing One whispered. She visibly collected herself and went about setting the electrodes, telling Loki what each one did in excruciating detail. I stood back and watched, hands jammed deep into my pockets and nails biting into my palms. I didn’t remember anything concrete from the time I spent with my extended family, but there were still dreams that woke me screaming in the night. Dreams I didn’t remember in the morning except a vague impression of glass sand beneath my feet and blood in my hair. I usually prayed to the porcelain god for an hour afterword. 

I didn’t move when Thing One finished and took a seat back behind a barrier. I didn’t move when she politely asked me to join her so they could begin testing. Loki glanced at me. I met his eyes with my own thousand-yard stare, then yanked up my shirt to display my souvenirs, careful to keep my back to the SHIELD people. 

“Daddy dearest,” I said. 

Loki’s eyes sparked. “Did you kill him?”

I grinned, hard and savage. 

His eyes fair glittered with malice and he nodded. “I have plans.”

“Good.”

I dropped my shirt and sauntered back behind a barrier before Things One and Two attacked me with Allen wrenches and clipboards. 

 

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

 

Things One and Two put Loki through his magical paces right through lunch and straight to five, at which point I simply walked up to him, removed the current scientific apparatus attached to his hand and gated us back to the tower. We arrived the same moment the Avengers trudged down from the landing pad, covered in brick dust and rubble bits, just in time to see a certain cheeky puck sprawled over the couch, tumbler of scotch in hand. 

“Greetings, ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,’ and really, could you be more egotistical? Though you, Stark, you I have to compliment on your truly fine array of liquor. Not as impressive as mine, of course—you’d need to have another life’s worth of money, but you’re not bad. For an amateur.”

As Stark tried to sputter over three things at once, Robin turned his green eyes on me and gave his patented used car salesman smile. “Long time no see, kid. Holding out on me, are you?”

I scrubbed my hands wearily over my face. “What are you doing here, Loman?”

The puck’s grin turned sickeningly smug. “I may have received a truly delightful little photo.” He retrieved his phone from his lapel pocket and showed me the lock screen. “Look at the big bad widdle you,” he crooned. 

I lunged for the phone. 

We struggled for precisely one and a half seconds before I was on the floor in a headlock.

And that was when Niko and Darcy walked into the common room with paper grocery bags—whelp, so much for _that_ idea. He gave me the Disappointed Teacher Look, shook his head, and walked into the kitchen. Hey, it wasn’t my fault I didn’t have a counter for a move the puck had probably learned when pharaohs roamed the earth!

Robin leaned back against the couch leisurely, putting even more pressure on my windpipe. _“Heill ok sæll,_ Loki. Tell me, you ever get that ring back?”

Loki scowled at the puck. 

“I thought not,” Robin said smugly. 

“Loman, I swear to fucking God, if you don’t get off me this fucking instant, I will gate you to Ant-fucking-arctica,” I wheezed. 

Robin sighed but got off me. 

“It is good to see you, old friend!” Thor approached with wide, happy strides, dust and rubble littering the floor behind him. He held his arms held out joyfully. 

Robin danced away. “Ah ah ah! Don’t even! You’ll ruin this shirt, and as there will be no sex at the end there is no point.”

Both the alien princelings looked shocked. Robin nodded morosely and passed out two of his cards to them, the ones that were embossed with the inscription “Robin Goodfellow, Monogamous” and the suicide hotline’s phone number. 

I picked myself up off the floor and stalked past the bewildered Avengers, patting Hawkeye on the shoulder. “Have fun, he’s not even buzzed yet.”

Cyrano and Darcy were exchanging notes on smoothies and chia seeds versus flax seeds. “Take a hike, Darce,” I said, jerking my thumb out the door. 

“Uh, why?” she asked, glancing at me. “This is a shared space—” I glowered. “Ah. Gotcha.” She patted Nik sympathetically on the arm as she passed. “Good luck, cowboy.” 

I waited until she was out of the kitchen before turning on Nik. “You asshole,” I hissed. “What did you have to call him for?”

“I did nothing of the sort.”

“Nik,” I ground out, “I am fine.”

His cynical look said all he thought of that statement. 

I folded my arms and glared back. 

“Seriously, Cyrano, I’m not about to have an episode here.”

Niko rolled his eyes and turned back to the cutting board. “I only called Promise.”

“Conniving little vampire.” I was duly impressed. Not maybe people could get Robin to do their bidding. I certainly couldn’t. In fact, I thought there had been only one person in that category. 

“Caliban!” the puck called from the common room. “Get your ass in here! We’re playing strip poker and I need you to be my whipping boy!”

And I could throw garlic powder all over her closet right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More liberties with Old Norse and Icelandic. The phrase used was taken from Wikipedia, BUT it was corroborated here: http://oldnorse.euro-talk.net/t8-basic-phrases. 
> 
> **IMPORTANT!!!**  
> I am attending a convention this next weekend, so the schedule will most likely get thrown off a bit. I regret nothing, my sister regrets nothing, there are no regrets to give.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back! Thank you all for patience and kudos in the longer-than-usual wait. 
> 
> Enjoy

Tony awoke with a start then groaned into his pillow. That was the damn assemble alarm blaring through the penthouse. He was hung over, sleep deprived, and had lost royally in that fucking poker game. He shouldn’t have to go avenging. He didn’t want to go avenging. 

_“Good morning, sir,”_ JARVIS said over the alarm. _“I realize you might not be coherent after last night’s activities, but it is noon, sir, and a group of tekekinetics are attempting to break into SHIELD HQ.”_

Tony punched his pillow but got up and staggered for the coffeemaker in the corner, there for just this purpose. “Alright, fine, JARVIS, I’m up. Get the suit. And for the love of Linux, shut that damn thing off!”

The alarm obligingly turned itself off and Tony sleepwalked his way through two cups of black coffee while the suit adhered itself to his body. It wasn’t until he was in the air and twenty minutes en route before he felt awake enough to tap into the comm.

“Right. It is still way too fucking early for this. What’s up, gang?”

“Language, Stark,” Steve sighed behind Clint’s amused snort as the quinjet took position in his slipstream. “Tony, it’s noon on a weekday. Most other people in this city have been at work for hours already and are at lunch.”

“And when are you going to get it through your concrete head, Capitaine, that I’m not most other fucking people?”

“Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed,” Natasha mused. “Or are you pissed that Robin managed to win all your clothes even after five bottles of scotch?”

“It was a most entertaining night,” Thor agreed.

“Fuck off, thunder boy. Are these people mutants or do they have some nice tech that I get to keep?”

“Undetermined,” Natasha replied. “Internal sensors picked up psionic activity, and cameras captured part of the lawn exploding but there was no evidence of explosives. We haven’t been able to determine much more other than their numbers. Professor Xavier’s people have been informed and are standing by if they turn out to be mutants.”

“If it’s tech, I call dibs. SHIELD damn well owes me for getting out of bed to save their asses on this.”

They arrived at HQ to discover the north lawn in chunks all over the parking garage. Agents were all over the place, mulling around almost aimlessly, guns out but not pointing at anything. The team disembarked while Tony landed, and they accosted the nearest agent.

“Status, Agent,” Natasha snapped. 

“Apparently, the threat’s been neutralized, sir,” the baby-faced agent reported. She sounded like Pepper did when Tony surprised her by acting mildly responsible. 

“What do you mean, ‘neutralized’?” Clint demanded.

“Sir, as in, all hostiles down and in custody. All Chitauri artifacts safe and accounted for.” She glanced around the garage full of agents in almost dazed fashion. “We rushed to get here and they’d already taken care of it.”

“Who did?”

The agent looked at them helplessly.

The Avengers glanced at each other then made their way to the stairwell. Agents hauling up moaning prisoners pressed themselves to the walls to let them by. The hallways were strewn with crumpled security doors, and chunks of concrete were missing from the walls. They followed the trail of destruction to the refrigerated storeroom and drew up short. 

Cal was crouched beside one of the downed intruders, going through the guy’s pockets, while Loki stood in the broken doorway, gazing at the Chitauri leviathan, arms crossed over his chest. 

Cal glanced up at the creaking of the suit and flashed them a smug smile. “You’re late.”

“You and my brother took care of the intruders?” Thor asked carefully.

“It was perfect timing,” the kid said. “Things One and Two had Houdini here doing the same magic trick for three hours and kept going on and on about entropy this and thermo-whatsit that—seriously, if I had had to sit there for one more minute I was going to shoot something. Thankfully, these morons tried to break in.” He sighed and flicked the unconscious body on the forehead. “Not like they were much of a distraction, damn amateurs.”

“Agreed,” Loki said. He looked away from the space whale and turned around. “The telekinesis was interesting, but they lacked finesse. JARVIS was more of a challenge.”

Cal snorted and started riffling through the guy’s leather jacket.

Tony tried to get a grip on what he was seeing. An assemble had dragged him out of bed with the hangover of the decade all so that he could fly down to DC and…do what exactly? There was nothing to fucking do!

Thor scrutinized his brother with a little wrinkle in his brow. “Loki, you…voluntarily helped?”

Loki gave Thor a baleful look. “It was an agreeable outlet.”

The punk made an intrigued noise and pulled a trinket off the downed guy’s bicep, resting back on his haunches. He sniffed at it curiously. 

“If that’s tech, it’s mine,” Tony growled. 

“That’s up for debate,” Phil said, joining them, followed by two scientists. He ignored Tony’s outraged ranting and cocked his head to the side, studying the pair of miscreants in the wrecked hallway. “FitzSimmons tell me that you two teleported out of their lab when the alarm went off.”

Cal shrugged. “We were bored.” Phil looked at Loki, but the trickster didn’t deny it. Cal tossed the trinket to Phil and stood up. “These guys are human, not a whiff of anything paien or mutant about them.”

“You can _smell_ if someone’s a mutant?” the woman scientist demanded. 

“Yee-ah,” the punk said like any kid on a playground. “I can pick out paiens and apparently aliens with my eyes closed. Why would mutants be any different?”

“Why weren’t we informed of this?” she demanded, looking between Phil and the kid. “We could have been running tests!”

The kid gave the scientist a smile that promised bloody mayhem if she came anywhere near him with a stethoscope. “Don’t fucking try it. I’m his babysitter,” he jerked a thumb at Loki, “not your lab rat.”’

Phil gave the trinket to her. The other scientist plucked it out of her hands before she so much as looked at it and held it up so close to his nose, his eyes crossed, muttering to himself. The two started arguing about neural interfaces. Phil returned his gaze to Cal and Loki. “You didn’t use your magic much, Loki. Why is that?” 

“I don’t give a damn whether he used knives, magic, or voodoo,” Tony shouted. “Goddammit, Phil, if everything was already fucking taken care of, why were we called in? I was _sleeping.”_

“Why is he allowed to sleep in and I’m not?” the kid asked petulantly. 

“Because I’m Tony fucking Stark!” Tony yelled. 

Phil was giving him the “I will taze you and watch Supernanny” look. Clint snickered then schooled his face to total blandness when the agent’s eyes flashed to him.

“He had an unfortunate night, sir,” the archer explained. 

“Watch it, raptor boy. I have pictures of your nest festooned in rhinestones and Hello Kitty bows. One more word and I’ll spam SHIELD with them. Dammit, Phil, I should at least get some damn tech out of this.”

“Go home, Stark,” Phil said. “We’ve got this covered. Loki,” he said, ignoring Tony and his laser eyes of death, “SHIELD would like to amend your service requirements. We’re adding you to our first-response team, as you have demonstrated that you can arrive the quickest out of all the specialists on payroll.”

Loki narrowed his eyes at Phil. “I stabbed you.”

“Yes. You didn’t do a very good job of it.”

“And you would willingly put me in a volatile situation without a leash.”

“Oh I wouldn’t say that. Mr. Leandros will of course continue to monitor your whereabouts and bring you back should you attempt to run.”

“I stabbed you and you would put a weapon—”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Loki, how many times are we going to argue about this?” the punk whined. “Have you heard of electroshock therapy? If you don’t get this through your thick alien skull, I’m gonna buy a shock collar and zap you every damn time you open your mouth.”

Loki looked more amused by this than properly chastened. “That would not accomplish much. I grew up with Thor, remember.”

“I’ll get you a permanent Bluetooth and call Robin each time, then.”

Loki scowled fiercely at that. Cal grinned evilly. 

“Fuck it,” Tony growled. “I’m going back to bed. JARVIS,” he called as he slammed the face mask back down, “take me home.” He turned off the HUD and closed his eyes, trusting his AI to pilot the suit back to the tower. 

 

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

 

We got to go home early that day, as Things One and Two were too wrapped up in the ESP thingy to do anything other than reply “Mmm,” or “Sure thing” to anything we said. So instead it was Mr. Prissy who turned the dial on Thor’s little magic remote to re-restrain Loki’s magic, running a newly cautious assessing eye over the two of us. It would be entertaining to see how many weapons the man showed up with tomorrow. 

Loki’s fingers twitched as two of the stones on his cuff regained their faint glimmer but didn’t say anything as I gated us back to the tower. 

_“Welcome back, Mr. Leandros, Mr. Loki,”_ JARVIS said from the ceiling. _“Congratulations on your new status.”_

“Does SHIELD know you spy on them?” I asked, walking over to the kitchen to look for lunch. 

_“I prefer to call it reconnaissance. They suspect, I believe, but there is little they could do to flush me from their systems.”_

“And people say Big Brother doesn’t exist.” There was no Mongolian leftovers from last night. None at all. What the hell? Darcy really hadn’t been kidding. At least there were plenty of other groceries in the fridge, unlike ours back home. Only Stark would be able to afford feeding alien gods and super soldiers. 

“Hey, Jarvy, that reminds me. When did Stark get Loki’s shirt size? It’s so spot on it’s rather disturbing.”

_“I took a scan and made the necessary arrangements. Sir has left many household details up to my discretion.”_

Loki was giving the camera tucked into the corner a funny look, but just then the Ironman suit flew past the windows. It bypassed the landing strip and maneuvered through an open window in the story above. 

“Did he really sleep the whole way back?”

_“Sir is still sleeping.”_

I tossed sandwich makings out of the fridge onto the counter. “That can’t possibly be comfortable.”

_“I believe that is beside the point at the moment. The other Avengers should be arriving momentarily.”_

I slammed the fridge closed. “Well I’m not making lunch for them. I’m not going to be responsible for those stomachs. Houdini, get over here and make yourself useful. I’m not your chef.”

We were sitting down with everything-under-the-kitchen-sink clubs when the Avengers came down from the landing pad. Captain America, Widow, and Hawkeye excused themselves, something about work they had abandoned for the alarm, but Thor stood in the doorway, watching Loki pick at the ingredients of his sandwich. 

Eventually I couldn’t stand it. “Either come in or fuck off. Your staring is freaking me out.”

Thor sat down on the opposite side of the breakfast bar and helped himself to the bag of chips I’d thrown open. He crunched on a chip as he gazed at his brother. “Son of Coul is right,” he said. Loki quirked a brow at him over his sandwich. “You had two stones unlocked yet you did not use your magic much.”

“Contrary to what you may think, Thor, I do not rely solely on my magic for everything.”

The jock rubbed a spot under his left ribs ruefully. “Yes, I am aware of that. But…surely it would be easier to use your magic?”

“You could run everywhere you go and be there faster, so why do you walk instead?”

Thor frowned. “But, there are many mages in Asgard who use their magic regularly with no adverse effects, and you have always used your magic to trick opponents in battle.”

“Only because I am not you! Why should I have to struggle to defeat my opponent when they will do it for me? Not everything requires a head-on collision, Thor.”

The elevator dinged and Darcy bounced into the room. “Hey guys! What’s up?”

Thor stood hastily, the chair scrapping against the floor. He smiled widely. “Lady Darcy! How is my Jane?”

“S’all good. She’s busy working on a new simulation, so I came up here to grab some food. She emptied the lab fridge while I was gone, and then with the whole poker thing we kinda forgot to restock it.”

“Slacker,” I cajoled.

“Thief,” she teased back, opening the freezer. She popped a frozen pizza—which, how come I didn’t know about that?—into an oven JARVIS had preheated for her and moved about the kitchen, pulling out plates, napkins, and meal-sized containers of premade salad. Thor literally jumped to her aid, piling everything carefully into a carrier basket and closing cupboard doors for her, all with that silly respectful smile in place. 

“Thor,” Loki said, turning in his seat to watch. “What are you doing?”

“I am helping the Lady Darcy prepare a meal for my Jane.”

Darcy leaned down between the two of us and threw a conspiratorial arm around Loki’s and my shoulders. Houdini stiffened slightly. “Let me let you in on some good dirt, Lokie-dokie. When your brother first landed here, I knocked him unconscious with my Taser and he’s been terrified ever since that I’ll do it again. What I want to know,” she added more loudly, glancing over her shoulder at the blond jock, “is why you’re not terrified of Jane. She ran into you twice with her car.”

“She was not going very fast,” Thor said. “And both times she had no intention of doing so. You, however, my dear Lady Darcy, very much meant to.”

JARVIS’ words from yesterday morning about Thor’s electrical immunity came back to me. “But—”

Darcy shot me a look and shook her head minutely, a twinkle in her eye. 

Loki’s mouth twitched. “Miss Lewis, I almost like you. Despite your insistence on that _fjandinn_ byname.”

Darcy beamed at him, patted his shoulder, then the oven dinged and she left to fetch the pizza. Thor handed her the carrier basket like he was giving her the keys to the city, which she accepted with a laughing little curtsy, and she disappeared into the elevator just as the door to the stairs swung open and Nik walked into the room. Not even winded. Not even. 

“Hey, Cyrano,” I greeted, jamming the last bit of sandwich into my mouth. “You missed all the excitement this morning.”

He swatted me on the back of the head. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Cal. Loki. Thor,” Niko finished, nodding in their respective directions. Opening the fridge, Niko pulled out a capped glass full of a thick substance the color of pond scum. When he sat down opposite me, the smell alone was enough to make me feel disgustingly healthy. My eyes watered. “What is this exciting thing I missed?”

I grabbed the open bag of chips and held it up to my face, shielding my nose with the smell of grease and salt. “Some punks tried to break into SHIELD and Houdini and I totally kicked their asses. Where were you anyway?”

“It’s Wednesday, Cal.” 

“Nearly two days till the weekend?”

Nik rolled his eyes over the rim of his glass. “I teach Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at ten. Do try and remember sometime.”

“It’s summer! What idiot wants to think about school in the middle of summer?”

He didn’t even comment on that one. “What were they after?”

“Some of that alien tech from last year.” I shrugged and tossed a chip in the air, caught it with my mouth. “Houdini here got made a specialist.” I grinned. “ _I_ get to fight with the Avengers.”

“God help us all,” Niko muttered. He took another drink of his health juice and ran an eye over Loki. “How are you feeling? Any injuries?”

Loki scowled. “Do not insult me.”

“Mmm.” Nik downed the last of the juice. He sluiced the glass in the sink, then headed for the stairs again, twitching his fingers in a beckoning gesture. “Come with me.”

Loki didn’t move. “Why?”

“I saw the footage from the obstacle course. I’m curious. And it will be nice to spar with someone besides Cal for a change.”

I shoved away from the table. “Now this I gotta see.” I hooked a hand around Houdini’s elbow and dragged him over to the elevator, ignoring Cyrano’s sigh. “Race you there,” I called. “Thor, you coming?”

The jock shrugged and hopped into the elevator.

Niko walked into the gym the same moment the elevator doors opened. “Goddammit, Nik! That was at least twenty flights of stairs. How the hell did you get here before us?”

“I have my ways,” he said. “Loki. Do you want hands or blades?”

“You—” I punched Houdini in the arm. Hard. He glared at me viciously and growled, “Blades.”

Niko pulled one of his duffel bags out from a cupboard. “Sword or knife?”

“Knife.”

“One or two?”

“Two.”

Niko tossed him two knives from the duffel bag and pulled out one of his own katana. Loki caught the knives and inspected them carefully, flipping them in his hands to get a feel for the balance. “These are quite good.”

“What did you expect?” I asked as I plopped down onto a bench. “This is Nik we’re talking about. He lives for sharp pointy objects.”

“I rather think keeping you alive has been my goal in life,” Niko said as he walked out to the center of the sparring mat. 

“Well, your second goal in life, then. Can’t deny that one.”

He didn’t even try. 

Thor leaned against the wall next to me as Loki joined Niko on the mat. Niko nodded at him in a formal greeting. Loki nodded back, bemused. They stared at each other, utterly still, for what seemed like an eternity. Then Niko struck like a viper, katana flashing in the lights. Loki blocked it without seeming to move. The corner of Niko’s mouth twitched, so small you had to know him like I did to even notice it, and they were off. 

It was all a whirling dance of light and metal and annoyingly fluid movements. The kind of fight Nik didn’t get very often, what between me with my practicality and our life where fights ended with someone dead or at least permanently maimed so they were no longer our problem. This would be good for him. 

And Loki actually gave him a bit of a run for his money. Snuck through his defenses a few times. Each time Niko managed to evade and give as good as he got. 

After ten minutes or so, Captain and Widow joined us spectators. The Captain just shook his head and settled next to Thor to watch, probably to make sure it didn’t get too carried away, the kill joy. Widow watched for a few minutes, head cocked to the side, then pulled her own knives from—somewhere—and slipped right into the fight like a girl skipping rope. Loki and Niko didn’t miss a beat, and the cute little sparing match became a truly fierce three-way battle. 

I laughed. “Knew this was gonna be worth it!”

The Captain rubbed a hand over his face but there a definite smile there. Thor was cheering each combatant on indiscriminately. He sounded like a football fan, except, much more accepting of the outcome. 

The battle went on for another half hour, finally ending with Niko holding off one each of Widow’s and Loki’s blades with his katana, and the other two holding their remaining blades to the other’s throat. 

I wolf-whistled. “Now kiss!”

Nik’s glare could have pulverized concrete. 

Widow tucked her knives back wherever they’d come from and stepped back. “Not bad, boys. We should make this a regular appointment.”

Niko flicked his katana through the air purely from habit, as there was no blood to clean off this time. “I see no problem with that. Loki, it was a genuine pleasure.”

Houdini obviously didn’t know how to take that. 

And that was when water balloons started raining down from the vents.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! It's been a while, sorry about that. Thanks for your patience and kudos in the interim.
> 
> Just a random little note: my sister mentioned that the symbol I had been using for breaks "0o0o0" made her think of siren noises, and now that is all I can think of when I see it, so I changed it. Maybe I'll get around to editing the previous chapters, who knows.

Hawkeye had made several mistakes. 

One—the water balloons had been filled with paint

Two—not the acrylic kind, either, but the I-will-stick-to-your-skin-if-it-fucking-kills-me kind. 

But his biggest mistake was booby-trapping the hallway outside the door with traps that accounted for super ninja skills, so even with her catish aversion to liquids and mess, Black Widow still got pea green and hot pink paint splattered over her hair. 

Widow froze in the hallway, the catapult arm that had flung the water balloon into her face rebounding beside her head. Then she pirouetted on her toes, trotted a couple steps, and launched herself into the vents. 

Everyone was silent for a few moments, staring up at the vents, then Nik said, casual as you please, “Cal, did you know you have purple paint on your jacket?”

“What?” I contorted myself around in circles, trying to see over my shoulder and down my back. I found a trail of paint behind my right elbow with drops on my back, probably from the water balloon that had hit the wall behind me. “Motherfucker. This is my favorite jacket!” I take it back—this was his biggest mistake. That little raptor wannabe was gonna be walking funny for months when I got done with him. 

_“I would appreciate it very much,”_ JARVIS said, _“if you all would detour to the gym showers instead of heading to your separate quarters.”_ The door to the showers opened of its own accord, and a strange little robot equipped with power mops popped out of a discrete cabinet and began not so discretely herding us toward it. 

“Pushy much?” I griped. 

_“This tower already sustains heavy damage with disturbing regularity by outside forces. I do not need its habitants making my daily operations more complicated. There is special soap Mr. Stark developed waiting in the cabinets, and all soiled clothing can go into the laundry chute. The tower’s dry cleaning has been notified.”_

Cap and Thor looked a little sheepish at that and went readily. I tossed my jacket down the shoot with a scowl and stomped into the showers, swiping a bottle of soap from the cabinet as I passed. I didn’t care that I had gotten off lightest out of everyone except Niko. That was my favorite jacket. I had spent months breaking it in.

Pattering thundered across the ceiling, and a few moments later, strangled yelps echoed through the vents. 

 

~*~

 

This morning was much better. 

Tony had still been forced out of bed at the godforsaken hour of seven am because he had to fly himself to HQ instead of getting teleported by the punk—“Sorry, dude, gating doesn’t go so hot for humans. But if you want to puke your guts out, that’s totally fine by me, I guess.”—but on the other hand, he’d gotten nearly eighteen hours of sleep, didn’t have a hangover, and got to enjoy his coffee before harrying off, so this definitely counted as one of his better mornings. 

And all in all, it worked out that he was flying himself. He got a few extra cups of coffee on the quinjet, and Bruce had wanted to come when he heard that Loki would be helping SHIELD scientists with the Chitauri biotech. While puking might be unpleasant, Tony had absolutely no desire to see what the Hulk would end up doing. 

The punk and Loki obviously beat them there, but the scientists at SHIELD knew better than to get started without him, and the whole group was waiting in a conference room. Tony narrowed his eyes at the two scientists. “I think you have something of mine.”

The guy shifted, looking deeply uncomfortable. “Uh, well, technically, Mr. Stark, it was legitimate war spoils for SHIELD.”

“Good morning,” Bruce jumped in. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your names.”

“Pleased to meet you, Dr. Banner,” the woman said, holding out a hand. “I’m Jemma Simmons. I’ve read your work on gamma radiation.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Really? You’re not hoping on replicating it, are you?”

“Oh good god, no.” She looked quite horrified by the idea. 

“Leo Fitz,” the guy offered.

“Agent Ward,” said the shadow leaning against the wall. “I’ve been assigned as security.”

“Timon, Pumbaa,” the punk intoned. He rolled his eyes when the rest of the room looked at him quizzically. “Jesus, and I thought I was the one out of the pop loop.”

Agent Ward’s formidable eyebrows scrunched. “ _The Lion King_ is a children’s movie, not pop culture.”

“Pssh. Like there’s a difference. Can we get going here?”

“I don’t see why not,” Simmons said, pushing away from the table. She opened the door and led the way down the hall. Tony couldn’t help but notice the way that the agent took the rear or how Cal smirked at him unrepentantly. 

On the way to the lab, Tony got Fitz to give him the run down on the telekinetic tech from yesterday. There wasn’t much, annoyingly. The two scientists had managed only a few scans before they’d determined that the tech had a power source of mystic origin and a Vigil representative had whisked it away. Tony scowled at the elevator number pad. Well damn. Now he was never going to get his hands on it. 

One of the Chitauri chariots dominated the middle of the lab space, cleaned of any battle residue and surrounded by lights and monitoring equipment. 

“Alright,” Simmons said. “What we’ve been able to do so far is locate its power source and physical mechanisms.” Fitz pulled up blue prints and schematics on his table and passed them to Bruce and Tony, who scanned through them with interest, wondering if there was any way he could appropriate some of the designs for one of his suits. The hover tech would be cool. “What we would like to do today is figure out how to activate it and how it interacts with the operator. So, Loki,” she said, turning to the trickster and smiling brightly, “how do we turn it on?”

Loki grimaced. 

The punk threw him a look. 

Loki grimaced even harder and stepped toward the chariot. The punk shrugged and crossed his arms, leaning comfortably against a bank of monitors. 

Loki climbed up into the ‘driver’s’ seat of the chariot, distaste in every line of his body, every inch the deeply offended cat. “I did not interact with the Chitauri much myself, so do not expect definite answers from me,” he warned. 

The two scientists shrugged. “We’re operating mainly on guesswork anyway,” Simmons said.

“Plus that’s alien tech,” Fitz added, “and you’re an alien, so you’ll have more insight than any of us here.”

Loki considered the console where it sprouted out of the chariot’s front, pursed his lips, and roamed his hands slowly in the air in front of it. “Neural interface,” he intoned, face a little slack with a distant, focused look in his eyes. “Organically encoded, reinforced with sigils and _seiðr_ channels…” His eyes refocused on the room. “It is designed so that only a Chitauri would be able to initiate the power sequence.”

The two scientists’ faces drooped. 

“Nothing is impregnable,” Tony scoffed. “How do we hack it?” 

Loki scowled at him. “It is not a simple matter of rewriting computer code, Stark. Organic encryption is one of the hardest systems to trick—your own people make much use of it as a security measure, as I recall,” he said with a raised brow. 

“Yeah, well, I also recall that you managed to bypass it just fine,” Tony sallied. 

“There are ways, yes, but they involve having access to the organic material the system is encrypted for. While I realize this is not an issue for you, there is also the _seiðr_ channels to consider. _Seiðr_ cannot be tricked.”

“Then rewire it.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “ _Seiðr_ is does not obey the laws of the material universe, Stark.”

“Neither does the Tesseract or that magical portal you popped open over the city,” Tony said, crossing his arms. “Or the fact that you and the kid can gate.”

“Like hell I’m a kid,” the punk interjected. 

“Look,” Bruce said, raising his hands in a placating gesture, “I realize this is outside of much of our experiences, but it’s still a machine, so whatever magic is involved has to interact with the physical mechanisms at some point. Is there anything you can do on that end, Loki?”

Loki eyed Bruce for a moment, then nodded. “I will need access to my magic.”

“How much are we talking?” Fitz asked as he produced the dial. 

Loki considered the console, then glanced at the scientists, almost cautious. “One stone should be proficient, but two would be preferable.” The scientists looked at each other, shrugged simultaneously, and Fitz turned the dial. Two stones on Loki’s bracelet went dull. 

“Why would you want two if you can do it with one?” Tony demanded, unease trickling down his spine. He wondered if he could get the two scientists on an internal review or something. They were way too ready to unleash Loki’s full force. 

“ _Seiðr_ ,” Loki explained, “is the essential force behind fate, and it is also the one with the greatest inertia. Once set down in a particular path, it is loath to leave it. Why else do you think history repeats itself as it does?”

Tony scrutinized the trickster. “You’re actually telling the truth, aren’t you?”

Loki gave him a look that could have withered rainforests. “Tell me, Stark, when at all during our talks have I lied to you?”

“He has a point, Tony,” Bruce said, unhelpfully. 

“Since when are you on his side?” Tony demanded. 

Bruce shrugged. “He hasn’t tried to take over anything yet, from the sound of it he doesn’t have any future plans to, and he’s paying his time just like any other criminal. Besides,” he added with a little smile, “Darcy likes him.”

The punk snorted. “ _That_ bouncy ball is your goodness meter? She’s _evil.”_

Tony felt slightly inclined to agree, but there was no way in hell he was saying that out loud.

“This will take time,” Loki said, ignoring them and turning back to the scientists. 

Fitz waved a hand. “It’s not like we’re on any kind of deadline.”

The punk sighed dramatically. “Why am I here again?”

Loki smirked, then turned back to the console and his eyes unfocused again. Tony moved himself over to the monitors where Fitz had EM field and spectra readings up in real time. It was almost as good as having JARVIS. Almost.

It was three hours before Loki resurfaced from his trance. Three hours in which Tony developed a new level of annoyance for Cal. The punk could not, for the life of him, sit still. He was constantly moving about, poking at things he shouldn’t, and distracting Tony, Bruce, and the scientists from watching the readings on the monitors fluctuate as Loki worked. The agent had attempted to keep him in control, and that had resulted in a fight that was one of the dirtiest Tony had ever seen. Baiting the agent kept Cal entertained for about a half hour before he bored of the exercise and started sniffing around the locked cabinets labeled with the biohazard sign. Simmons had run off after him at that point. 

Finally Loki blinked and his eyes refocused on the room. “You will need to coat your temples with some Chitauri blood, but the system should recognize anyone as a legitimate master now.”

“Well that’s downright disgusting,” Cal said. Loki shrugged. 

“Just anyone?” Fitz asked. “Anyone can start it up so long as we have some Chitauri DNA on our skin?”

“Approximately,” Loki said, climbing down from the chariot. 

Simmons immediately started chattering away about how to create a DNA solvent for the coating, a discussion which Bruce didn’t stay away from for long. Loki watched them swap ideas with what Tony could only call frustrated bemusement. 

He cocked his head to the side. “What’s got your head all in a knot?”

Loki looked at him, opened his mouth, then glanced at Cal when the punk stepped into his field of view meaningfully, and scowled. Tony looked between the two of them, doubly curious now. 

“Are you like this will all your enemies?” Loki eventually asked. 

Tony shrugged. “Can’t really say I’ve ever encountered an enemy more than once. Unlike other groups I could mention but won’t name, when I beat someone’s ass, they’re beat.”

“So what you’re telling me is that you are arrogant and overconfident?”

“I’m a genius, I don’t need to be overconfident.”

Loki sniffed. “That remains to be seen.”

Tony gave him the smile he reserved for stubborn-ass politicians. “Is that a challenge, Rudolph?”

“Do you require a written invitation?” Loki returned. 

Tony then proceeded to lecture Loki on the finer points of repulsor technology and quantum mechanics for the next several hours while Bruce and Simmons made happy with their alchemy holdovers. Loki made no attempt to hide his amusement with his ‘quaint little mortal theories’ and attempted to poke holes in Tony’s tech, which Tony parried back with sardonic accusations and general snarkery. 

It was some of the most fun he’d had in months—which was another thing he refused to say out loud. 

They were arguing about photons over the remains of lunch when there were happy eureka noises from the Bruce/Simmons team.

“We’ve got something!” Simmons said, holding up a vial full of a clear liquid. “This is essentially Chitauri DNA in a water solution. Once you paint it on your skin, the solvent should evaporate and leave the DNA behind, so I would suggest a few coats, at least?” she said, looking to Loki for confirmation. 

He nodded. “That should be sufficient.”

The punk swiped up the vial before anything else could be said, popping up from his seat. “Me first!” he said, already unscrewing the top. “I deserve it for having sat through all this boring. Even if this is one of the most disgusting things I’ve had to do get some fun.”

“Now wait just a minute!” Tony started when a hand appeared on the punk’s shoulder and pushed him back into his seat.

“No,” Niko commanded.

The order even gave Tony pause, sounding so much like Pepper as it did.

“Cyrano,” the punk said, not perturbed one bit. Also trying to hide the vial under the table. “When did you get here?” He paused, turned back to look at his brother. _“Why_ are you here?”

Cyrano—damn that kid was contagious; that, and damn but that nickname really fit him—raised an eyebrow and held out a regal hand. The two brothers appeared to engage in a telepathic argument of epic proportions—either that or they'd created a new sign language spoken entirely through eyebrow movements. Eventually, the punk handed the vial over.

“Killjoy,” he muttered, crossing his arms like a child.

Instead of whapping his head like Tony had seen Niko do numerous times in the past five days—good lord, he wasn’t paid enough to have to deal with this—Niko tugged on the punk’s rat tail, almost like a reassuring gesture that he’d get his turn on the alien hover. Which he absolutely would not.

Tony held out his hand. “I’ll test drive.” It did make the most sense. Bruce was Bruce, and not prime material for trying new and possibly dangerous tech. FitzSimmons were schizophrenic, and the hover craft only had a portal for one head anyway. Agent Ward was an agent and therefore not to be trusted with strange new tech, Niko clearly was the only one able to ride herd on the kid, who was also riding herd on Loki. Loki…Loki was not protesting his pronouncement. Tony narrowed his eyes at the trickster, but he just smiled brightly and gestured toward the chariot with a ‘after you’ gesture. 

Niko turned to hand him the vial—somehow managing a full body restraint of the punk with only one hand—and Tony had the most nauseating sensation that Pepper was looking at him and judging this whole thing to be a supremely stupid idea.

 

~*~

 

Pepper had definitely been right.

Tony’s body slammed into a wall for the seventh time, his helmet snapping closed just before impact. He’d decided to wear his suit after his first crash, which hadn’t been nearly so fast. The Chitauri DNA plastered across his forehead—definitely taking a long shower when he got home—did indeed allow him to turn on the alien Batplane, but apparently the ‘hovercraft’ didn’t actually ‘hover.’ It just shot off straight ahead as soon as he was linked up, with no idea how to turn or where the brakes were. It rather reminded him of his first—and only—time riding a motorcycle. Thankfully, that first time his head had been whipped from the control console, and the damned thing had ground to a halt from the lack of input. So he’d only tumbled into the wall, rather than slamming into it spread eagle and sliding off it like a bug.

Tony rolled to his feet and eyed the hover craft, now sitting haphazardly on the floor with its nose buried in the far wall, surrounded by the other marks of his failures. “If you say one word, I will personally sneak into your room at night and tie all your hair to the headboard,” he told the grinning trickster. 

“Didn’t know you were a girl, Stark,” the punk snapped from the back of the room. 

Tony ignored them all. Well, he’d turned it this time. He just couldn’t figure out how to slow it down. Maybe if he trimmed a few inches off the wings it wouldn’t go so fast. “JARVIS,” he said, “start super-charging my arc reactor.”

 _“I don’t think that would be a good idea, sir,”_ JARVIS helpfully replied. _“And after the last time, Ms. Potts instructed me not to do that unless either her person or the sun was in danger.”_

“Remind me again who programed you?” Tony snapped. 

_“I’ve been adding to my own programing for the last six months, sir.”_

“Strangely,” Fitz said from behind the monitors, “I’m beginning to be glad that the DWARFs don’t talk.” Simmons made a murmured noise from where she was checking readings of Tony’s biometrics versus energy scans from the chariot. 

“Cal,” Niko said, followed by a thump, “stop pacing.” Tony glanced over his shoulder to see the punk sprawled on the floor by Niko’s feet. “It’s obnoxious.”

“I’m _hungry,_ ” Cal whined from the floor. “Stark’s been at this for _hours_ ¸ Loki’s done _nothing,_ why are we still _here?”_

Tony checked the clock on the HUD display. “Wow, when did it get to be seven?”

_“I did try to tell you, sir, that work hours were over, but I believe you were crashing into the ceiling at the time.”_

“JARVIS, I am seriously beginning to question your effectiveness here—”

An alarm up above the door started blaring as alerts popped up on the monitors. 

The punk jackknifed up off the floor in a move that made Tony’s spine ache just watching it, and pulled out his gun with a feral grin. “Who and where?”

FitzSimmons were staring at the monitors in shock, while Agent Ward was talking rapidly into his earpiece. “Uh,” Fitz said, looking up at them, “ah, it looks like, um, Dr. Doom is attacking HQ.”

JARVIS pulled up security footage of an army of cloaked robots swarming the lawns and blasting the ground. A call to assemble flashed across the HUD screen as Cal cackled—fucking _cackled_ —grabbed hold of Loki, and teleported the two out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit's going down next couple of chapters (＾∇＾)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! 
> 
> So I have a lot of stuff planned for the next chapter and there just isn't a pause point that doesn't also obliterate any tension I had managed to build up so I didn't really want to parcel it up. But it was pointed out to me that it has been a LONG time since I last updated this, and ReignStorm believes there are "too many" things slotted to happen next chapter. I thought about it at work, and decided that I could give you this chunk. 
> 
> On that note: my sister finally got her AO3 account, so you can now blame ReignStorm for 88% of this bunny.

Tony groaned. “Would it _kill_ them to wait? Yo, you, hold up—and he’s gone,” he said as Niko didn’t acknowledge him at all and charged out into the hallway for the stairs. “God dammit,” Tony growled. “A frickin’ sword isn’t going to _work_ on a doombot!”

“Um…” Fitz held up a hand hesitantly. “If you want…I—might have something, if you want to give it to him?” He fidgeted when everyone turned to look at him. “It’s not much really, just something I’ve been fiddling with in my spare time, but…” He opened a drawer on a far cabinet and drew out two metal sai, about forty or fifty centimeters long with prongs about half that length. “I thought they’d be fun, but they can also function as a close-range alternative to the Night-Night Gun, if you wanted. When you depress this part of the hilt,” he demonstrated and lightning arched between the ends of the prongs and the center shaft, “you get enough volts to stun a small elephant.”

A strangled coughed sounded from somewhere.

What?” he asked, eyes darting around the group. “We go up against superhumans and robots. A Taser’s not going to be much help, is it?”

“Fitz,” Agent Ward said as he checked his gun, “remind me to get you more to do. You obviously have too much free time.”

“What?” Fitz demanded. He pointed at Tony. “It’s okay for him to create armored flying suits with ray guns in his spare time but it’s not for me to tinker with personal defense devices? Oh and what about her?” He pointed to Simmons. “She blows up the lab more often than I do.”

“Those are all accidents!”

“Oh sure they are. What about that time—”

“Fitz!” Tony shouted, cutting off the spat before it could start. He held out his hand imperiously. The engineer tossed the sai to him. “JARVIS, got a path for me outta here?”

_“Mapped and programmed in, sir.”_

“Great. Let’s rock and roll.” He launched himself off the floor and let JARVIS navigate the suit through the rat maze of hallways and out onto HQ’s lawn. He got there just as Niko did and bodily stopped the man from diving straight into the fray. Niko glared at his helmet like he was seriously thinking about driving his blade through the eye slits. Tony was not fazed. Natasha gave him that look all the time.

“Hold your horses, cowboy,” he said. “A sword’s going to do jackshit against Doom’s stuff. His robots may be the cheap drugstore kind, but it’s still gonna be like fighting multiples of me. These should be more effective.” He thrust out the sai and demonstrated the button. Niko glowered suspiciously at them, glanced at the chaos that was SHIELD’s front lawn, then took the sai. He flipped them around his fingers expertly to check the balance while flicking the button then turned and jammed them into the hip joint of the nearest doombot. It collapsed into an inanimate pile, but the ninja didn’t even pause, already moving on to his next victim. The asshole didn’t even say anything. Completely ignored Tony’s generosity.

The quinjet’s engine rumbled through the air as it shot over the roof. “We really need to stop meeting like this,” Natasha said into the comms. 

“Well stop getting your secret hideout invaded and we’ll see,” Tony retorted. 

“Bicker later,” Steve ordered as he jumped out of the quinjet’s open bay doors onto a doombot, smashing its head with the edge of his shield. “Right now we’ve got an invasion to stop. Hulk, Thor, see if you can halt their digging. Widow, drop Hawkeye off on the roof then get down here and help Iron Man contain—what the heck is that?”

Tony followed Cap’s eye toward the knot of churning robot limbs. “Ah. That would be Loki and the punk kid. And that over there,” he pointed to the path of destruction working its way around the lawn, “is Big Brother Ninja.”

“What is a ninja?” Thor asked. 

“Awesomeness in black clothing,” Clint said. 

“Guys!” Steve shouted, his Lone Suffering Parent look on, “battle? Currently happening?”

“Relax, Capsicle,” Tony said. “The doombots aren’t going anywhere.” Steve threw him a look. “Right, right, perimeter. I’m going, I’m going. Widow, need a lift off the roof?”

“Why?” she asked. JARVIS threw up a video of Natasha unclipping a rappel line from her belt. Tony muttered impolite things about government superspies and stealing his thunder, then went and made himself feel better by blasting off robot heads. 

It had been a while since Dr. Doom had tried anything in the States, so Tony could be forgiven for having forgotten something important: he really _hated_ doombots. The flying was annoying, the lightning was irritating, but the self-repair was downright _obnoxious._ They just would not stay dead. You had to literally destroy anything of value in their head for death to be permanent, which meant there was literally nothing worth fiddling with later. The bastard. 

At least Thor and Hulk had made progress with stopping their digging down to the basement warehouse. Hulk almost seemed to be enjoying playing whack-a-bot.

At some point when Tony hadn’t been paying attention—one doombot had decided to try and blast his face off while another snuck up from behind—SHIELD agents had arrived with really big ass guns, much like the one Phil had used on Loki, and started blasting away with abandon. Unfortunately it didn’t do much besides keeping the robots out of commission for a few minutes until an Avenger could get to them, but it was damn satisfying to see them lying in the grass with smoking molten holes in their armor. 

That said, none of the agents ventured out onto the battlefield proper, as they were squishy and easily pulverized—another very good reason why Clint was on the roof. The only humans apparently stupid enough to ignore that were the two brothers. Though the punk wasn’t exactly all human, and a robot had yet to make contact with Niko. If Tony had had any doubts about ninjas before, the man restored his faith in their existence. 

Until half the remaining doombots, frustrated by their attempts to dig constantly thwarted, picked him as the easiest target and swarmed him. In such a situation, there was only so much even Steve or Tony could do, and while Niko managed to dodge or deflect the first four, the fifth backhanded him into the waiting arm of the sixth, who flung him with as much force as it could muster across the battlefield. He bowled over the three agents in his flight path to smash into the outer wall of HQ and slide down to the grass in an unmoving heap, sai still clutched in his hands. 

From across the battlefield, a vicious, inhuman snarl erupted, warped and shattered like the vocal chords were meant for something else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're welcome.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAY, WE POSTED!!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!! WE ARE SO, SO DAMN *TIRED* OF READING AND RE-READING THIS DAMN THING. (On the plus side, there probably won’t be any typos (but if you see any, please let us know!).) 
> 
> So sorry for the wait, guys! Especially after that mean cliffhanger (we regret nothing). 
> 
> Enjoy!

Tony whipped around, repulsors up and charged. Cal was tearing his way through the doombots, literally. He’d flung his gun away and was just grabbing any part that came within reach, twisting, wrenching, yanking, the silver sheen of his gates coating his hands, and his eyes glowing a vicious molten red. Robot parts flew everywhere, sometimes disappearing midair to reappear a few meters away, smoking and corroded and reeking of acid and throwing off slight radiation on JARVIS’ sensors.

Loki had been left to fend for himself, and any Avenger or agent that got in the way of Cal’s furious dash to his brother was thrown to the nearest doombot. Even Tony was given a ferocious shove when he tried to tell the punk his brother’s heart was still beating—a shove after which JARVIS informed him that part of the suit’s left knee was missing. 

By the time Cal had reached the wall his brother slumped against, the only doombots left were the three being demolished by Thor and Loki. The battlefield was a smoking ruin of a lawn, robot parts disintegrating into the grass, the air tainted with the stench of acid and something else that Tony couldn’t name, but it bit at his tongue and made his throat constrict with the need to cry or scream himself hoarse. Several people had chemical burns from contact with flying robot parts, including Steve, who’d taken a flying elbow to the face, though being the super-soldier he was it was half-healed already.

It was like a scene from a sci fi horror movie, or one of those trendy new dystopian films where everything has gone to shit and only a few stragglers survive. Even the two Asgardians looked mildly shocked by the wreckage—which was just damn paradoxical, coming from Loki. 

“Nik?”

The quiet voice was the only sound—other than hissing metal—on the lawn and drew their attention like a super magnet. Cal crouched beside his brother, running gentle fingers over his head in a methodical manner, paying absolutely no attention to the scene around him. “Come on, Cyrano, don’t do this to me again.”

Niko remained quiet. 

Cal pinched his cheek. 

Niko’s eyelids fluttered before deciding to chance it, and he squinted up at his brother. Cal held up his middle finger. “How many?” he demanded. 

Niko scowled. “Three. I’m fine. It was just a bump on the head, Cal. I’ve had worse.”

“The hell it is!” Cal shouted. “You have a freaking concussion, Niko! I’m the one who gets those, not you, you fucking ninja asshole!”

Niko winced at Cal’s volume. “I’ve had worse,” he repeated stubbornly. He moved to sit up and his mouth tightened minutely, kind of like Natasha or Clint when they’d been injured but refused to go to Medical. Cal ripped Niko’s shirt open and scowled at the bruises wrapping around Niko’s ribcage. 

“Not the point, Professor,” he growled as he started probing, looking like he’d had way too much practice. “These aren’t revenants or Kin or, or—or even fucking _bodachs,_ Nik. It’s robots. _Robots,_ Niko. With _lightning._ And you have three cracked ribs, you colossal asshole.”

Niko grimaced despite himself and feebly batted Cal’s fingers away. This time when he moved to sit up, Cal just looked resigned and wrapped a hand around his neck to hold his head still, propping his knee behind Niko’s back so that he’d have support to lean against at a more conducive angle than the wall. Niko’s face went a little green from the altitude change and his fingers tightened around the sai, but he just clenched his jaw and breathed through it. 

His brow wrinkled, and he sniffed the air again. He coughed. “Cal, why do I smell…?”

“They were in the way.”

Niko looked at Cal. The punk was rock rigid, except for a small fidget in his fingers.

Niko dipped his head so that their foreheads touched. “I am sorry, little brother.”

Cal humphed, but didn’t move away. “As long as you’re aware. It’s the first step, you know—as Robin would tell you if he ever went to an AA meeting. The second is obeying your brother’s every command and making him chocolate chip pancakes every morning for the next week.”

As Cal slowly helped Niko over to the medical teams who were cautiously making their way out of the building, Tony considered the utter destruction of SHIELD’s front lawn. The hell had he let into his tower?

~*~

The Avengers got Chinese takeout and ate it with forced levity. They’d been giving me strange looks ever since the ride back in the quinjet. Even Houdini. He’d sat quietly in the corner and shot wide-eyed glances he thought were covert at where I was hovering over Niko. Yes, hovering. Me. Twenty-five year-old, calorie and sleep worshipping, angst-ridden badass ass-kicker _me_ was hovering over Nik like a goddamn mother hen. And why, might you ask? Because the asshole went and got himself _smashed_ into a _building._ While fighting _robots_ with _blunt instruments._ Sure, whatever, they’d been electric blunt instruments, but they were still _blunt_ , and this is _Niko_ we’re talking about, high priest to anything sharp and pointy. What did he expect to happen? But no, let’s borrow a page from ol’ Cal’s book and just charge right in, because we all know _that’s_ a good idea, especially when we’re human and taste good with ketchup!

But it’s all fine. I’m cool. Fucking dandy, in fact. It’s not like he’d gotten himself engulfed again, or hung from the ceiling and carved up like a turkey, or chased down like a fucking rabbit by my fucking familial relations, nope. He just had a concussion, a handful of cracked ribs, and enough bruising to look like a fucking bouquet. From getting smashed into a _building._

Was I obsessing?

Maybe.

Did I give a fucking shit?

Not a drop.

So I ignored all the Avengers and visiting aliens and their creepy ass staring routine like I do Robin when he’s running his mouth and made sure Niko took his painkillers for once—it was Stark freaking Tower, what did he need sharp reflexes for, lamias dropping from the vents?—ate some lo mein without offering it back up to the porcelain god, and actually got into bed and stayed there. Fucking paranoid-ass ninja. Not that I don’t know I’m no different, but still. _Stark freaking Tower._

Which is why I was now lying in my own bed instead of camped outside his door, like I would be if we were anywhere but our apartment. I don’t really pay attention to the news but superhero stuff tends to be loud and annoying, so it was still common knowledge that no one had ever attacked the Avengers in Stark Tower. So there was absolutely nothing to worry about and I still had a job we were being paid for.

None of that meant I got any sleep. 

According to Jarvy’s helpful clock, it was 2:03am when Loki’s sheets rustled.

“Why did he apologize?”

The glowing red numbers clicked over to 2:04.

“What an obvious question. ‘Cause he did something monumentally _stupid._ ”

“Thor never apologizes for doing that.”

I snorted.

Loki made a vague agreeing noise and was silent. The clock glowed 2:05.

2:06.

2:07.

God, into a _building._ We survive Sophia, running our entire lives, a troll, a reincarnated serial killer, the Kin, telepathic vampires, Robin’s older homicidal cousin—all so that I could nearly lose him from something sickeningly mundane. Fucking bullshit. A _building._

2:08.

“I am one thousand and forty-eight years old,” Loki said into the dark quietly, as if still thinking it through, “as Midgard would count it. And in all that time, I do not think anyone other than my mother has apologized to me in any sincere manner.”

Goddamn. I rubbed a hand down my face, dragging at my eyeballs. I was right. Fucking Antarctica. Even I’d done better than that. What the hell was I supposed to say?

Luckily I didn’t have to come up with anything because Loki kept talking.

“Not that I want them to. Only Odin has truly done anything deliberately. Everyone else is simply being the oblivious and complacent fools Odin wishes them to be. If I demanded apologies for every act of stupidity, I would constantly be chattered at, and I would rather be eviscerated.”

I dropped my hands back to the mattress. “Doesn’t really sound like your kind of place.”

It was Loki’s turn to snort. “They have magnificent libraries. Scholars old enough to have seen the beginnings of worlds. Spellwork unlike anything in Yggdrasil. And they would let it all rot in exchange for glorious battles and drinking parties.”

Antarctica and growing. There was no global warming for this guy, no, Houdini had to have global chilling. Of course he did. 

“You ever read the story ‘The Ugly Duckling?’” I asked the dark, then answered myself. “Oh. Sorry. Alien, right. You should read it. Seriously.”

Loki said nothing to that. The clock ticked over again.

2:09.

~*~

It was 8:39am when JARVIS broke the silence. _“Good morning, Mr. Leandros, Mr. Loki. Mr. Leandros, a package has arrived for you from Mr. Goodfellow. And I believe you would wish to know that Mr. Leandros, Sr., has just entered the kitchen.”_

I growled into my hands. You would think that someone who treated their body like a temple would know to stay in bed when injured, but no, Niko had nerves of steel so what was a little concussion or a cracked rib or three? At least he had the decency to wait until the sun had risen.

“Up, Houdi—oh.” He was already up, propped against his pillows and staring out the window. Well fine then. I shoved off the bed, flung a hand out for his knee, and gated us up to the kitchen. Nik was just sitting down at the breakfast bar with the rest of the Cheery Breakfast Club. At least the Cheery Breakfast Club looked somewhat disturbed and were doing everything they could think of to make sure he was comfortable. Still, enablers. The rest of the Avengers, minus Stark, were at the table, helping themselves to scrambled eggs and bacon with a side of coffee. 

At least Captain America and Stark’s CEO had the grace to look sheepish when we appeared. 

Nik just calmly served himself tea. 

“Niko,” I growled, stalking toward the bar, “what part of ‘concussion’ does your ninja ass not understand?”

 _“If I may,”_ Jarvy said from the ceiling, _“my sensors are also detecting nine subperiosteal hematoma, located along Mr. Leandros, Sr.’s ribcage, left scapula, and left olecranon and epicondyles, along with the afore-stated concussion and cracked ribs.”_

I didn’t know what the hell a subperiosteal hematoma was but it was a big medical word and he had nine of them, so I was totally vindicated in glaring at Niko harder. “Do not make me gate you back to bed.”

It was an empty threat, and he knew it, the bastard, judging by the slight crinkle around his eyes. Gating made humans turn their stomachs inside out, and there was no way I was doing that to him while he had a concussion. 

The Hulk got up at Jarvy’s announcement and walked over to Niko cautiously, glancing at me. “May I take a look?” 

Both me and Niko eyed him. “Do you have medical training?” I asked. 

The Hulk wiggled a hand. “Enough to experiment on myself and roughly know what I’m doing?”

“So slightly better than us. Fine. You,” I said, jabbing a finger at Niko, “will sit still.”

Niko gave me a baleful look. 

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. “I _will_ call Robin.”

Niko sniffed. “That will not be necessary, thank you, Cal.” He waved a hand at the Hulk and went back to his tea. The Hulk gingerly lifted the back of his shirt and squinted at Niko’s back. I tapped my foot. Niko’s mouth tightened when the Hulk touched a particular spot. 

“So, ‘doc,’” I drawled, “what’s the verdict?”

“JARVIS is certainly correct,” he said as he straightened, letting Niko’s shirt drop. “These will take a while to heal. Nearly as long as your ribs, in fact. I highly recommend avoiding strenuous activity for the duration. Getting as much rest as possible will help heal both these and your concussion.” I grinned victoriously at Niko. “For the bone bruises, specifically, it will help if you increase your vitamin K and C intake, so dark leafy greens and fruit. Cultured dairy would also help.” 

Niko gave me his equivalent of a smirk: crinkled eyes and a slight upturn to one corner of his mouth. I transferred my glare to the Hulk. “Don’t tell him that! He drinks wheatgrass juice straight for fun. He doesn’t need the encouragement.”

The Hulk just shrugged at me as he walked back to his chair. “It’ll help.”

I decided to ignore the room and looked around for my package. A cardboard box about the size of a butterball turkey swaddled in packing tape had been pushed into the far corner. “Why is my package all the way over there?”

“Because it was moving,” Hawkeye said.

I eyed the box with marginal trepidation and considered what the repercussions would be if I gated the box back to Robin. The guy was Puck after all. 

Ah, fuck it. I was too curious, and it wasn’t like Robin was going to send something lethal my way, even if I did drive him up the wall occasionally. 

I grabbed a knife from the block on the counter and hacked my way through the packing tape. A puff of dusty, musty air leaked out. I eyed the box with even more trepidation. The only things that smelled like that were Salome, Robin’s first mummified cat, and the second one I’d gifted him with, Spartacus—and Wahanket, a mummy known as Hank to his friends and victims, and who was an annoying homicidal meddling bastard. This had better not be something of his or the puck was getting pepper sprayed in the balls. 

I took out the gun I’d stuffed into the waistband of my jeans, pointed it at the box, and opened the flaps with the knife. 

_Mew._

I blinked. Rubbed my eyes with the butt of the gun, and looked again. Nope. There was still a litter of kittens in there. Six mummified little hairless balls with ears like satellite dishes. A note was taped to the inside. Tucking the gun back into my waistband, I opened it. 

_“This is your fault,”_ it said, with many angry underlines. _“And as this is your fault, YOU get to bloody keep them. I hope they destroy your apartment, you irresponsible lying bastard.”_

Oh, so these were Spartacus’. I grinned down at the kittens. The dog. I reached down and chucked one of the kittens under the chin. It bit my finger and started playing with it, while its neighbor started clawing its way up my sleeve. 

“So what’s in the box?” Hawkeye demanded. “Do I need my bow or are we calling pest control?”

I scooped up the rest of the kittens, and just for that comment, I plopped one on his head as I walked by. The man screeched as the kitten dug its claws in for balance and started hopping around like his bird-sake. 

Niko stared at my arms. “Those cannot be what I think they are.”

“Ding ding ding!,” I said with a shit eating grin, sitting down on the stool next to him. “We are now the proud owners of the first litter of undead kittens, ever.” I placed one in his lap and watched his expression try to decide what emotion he was supposed to be feeling as he watched it wobble around in circles. The kitten that had scaled my sleeve had made it to my shoulder and was now tucked under my ear against my neck, purring sandpaper rough and with all the force of an outboard motor. The first had yet to divest itself from my fingers. Loki was staring with an uncertainly intrigued expression. I solved his dilemma by placing the fifth on his shoulder, where it immediately started yanking on his hair, like a live Christmas ornament. It was so funny I did the same to Thor with the last kitten. 

“Dwah,” I said at them.

If Loki could have skinned me with his eyeballs, that look would have done it. Thor looked like he was considering something similar but more blunt. But I did notice neither of them removed the kittens. 

I held up the kitten attempting to maul my hand and wriggled my fingers, which sent the kitten into a frenzy. It would have been more ferocious if she had any teeth. Now it was just adorable.

The elevator doors opened and Stark strode into the kitchen, waving a tablet. “What’s an auphe?”

Hawkeye’s “What’s a what-what?” and Steve’s “Is that some newfangled version of ‘elf’?” was drowned out by both alien gods rearing back on their stools, sputtering, to stare at the billionaire like he’d informed them the universe was ending. 

“The auphe are the Scourge of Midgard,” Thor said, when he managed to actually articulate English words. That was cool. I was a _scourge._ “Nowhere else in the Nine Realms, or even in the whole of Yggdrasil is there a race as fully bent on malice and destruction as they. On some of our more foolhardy journeys here, I saw the carnage in their wake, and it was…” the alien’s face was vaguely green from the memory. He shuddered like Robin had dropped an ice cube down his shirt. “…I once saw the aftermath of a dragon rampage and not even that compared to what we saw. Blood flowed like water, bodies were sliced to ribbons and the pieces discarded like a child’s broken toy. Not even Volstagg could eat after that horror.” 

Well. Volstagg had never starved then. But a dragon? Robin was a lying son of a bitch. He’d backed up that revenant. 

“They are the reason Asgard avoided contact with Midgard,” Loki said. “Thor’s banishment here was the first we had heard of their diminished numbers, and apparent erasure from history. It was truly a cruel gamble of the Allfather’s to send Thor here as a mortal.” The kitchen was frozen silent while Loki stared at Stark, eyes wide and appraising. I was curious if he would ever admit to the pinch of fear blooming in them. “Why do you ask? Have they been sighted?”

Stark blinked. “What? No. Not at all. Just—” He glanced at me and Niko stiffened. “JARVIS and I finally managed to hack deep enough into SHIELD to see the transferred files from the Vigil, and they say the punk here is half-auphe.”

Everyone sat up straighter. Hawkeye and Widow actually got up; the better to spring into action, if needed. Stark’s CEO looked very uncertain and extremely uncomfortable in the center of our little gathering but moving would draw even more attention and, as this was likely to become volatile and she was not a dumb person, she was reluctant to do so. 

A fluke of arrangement had me at one end of the room. Niko stood and angled himself in front of me, resting on the balls of his feet like his torso was the picture of health. Stubborn asshole. As for myself, I stayed just were I was, watching the proceedings with a blank expression. It wasn’t like they’d do anything I hadn’t seen before. Learning this tidbit of information had boringly predictable consequences. 

If ever there was a time for the word ‘befuddlement,’ it was now and for Thor’s face. The alien looked like he couldn’t quite parse what Stark was saying and didn’t know if he should laugh it off as a bad joke or go for his hammer and wreck Ragnarok. 

Loki….Loki was frozen. His eyes were locked on me with an almost betrayed expression while his hands white-knuckled the breakfast bar. 

“Is this true?” Thor asked. 

I shrugged and waved with the hand that didn’t have a kitten valiantly chomping at it. “Successful genetic experiment, at your service.”

“Cal,” Niko admonished without turning. 

The Hulk winced. Captain America shifted in his seat. 

Thor looked like someone had hit him over the head with his own hammer. “Your mother _lay_ with an auphe?”

I laughed with a cracked grin. “Sophia would do nearly anything for the right amount of cash.”

It had not escaped my notice that Hawkeye and Widow were reaching covertly for weapons. Niko hadn’t missed it either, and he was telepathically promising them gruesome injury if they were so foolish as to try something. 

The Hulk’s brows furrowed. “What does an auphe look like? Is a coupling even possible? Aside from the very obvious fact that it is,” he amended with a slight apologetic look to me. 

“Auphe are very pale,” Thor replied, squinting at me, like he was mentally comparing me as he spoke. “Their hair is white and extremely thin. They have pointed ears and red eyes that give off their own light in the dark. Their teeth are similar to needles and are even made of metal.”

Just for the hell of it, I bared my—very human—teeth at him.

Stark’s CEO squirmed in her seat, eyes darting from Stark to the elevator.

“So,” the Hulk interjected, “they are humanoid? Bipedal?”

“They are faster on four,” Thor corrected.

“Well,” Widow said, gaze locked on me and hand on her knife, “that explains the eyes.”

“They are not actually from Midgard,” Loki suddenly said. Jesus, he wasn’t even blinking. “Midgard is just their playground. Their true home is Tumulus, a realm of such harshness not even Aesir may survive there for long. The very air burns. It can corrode away the strongest armor in a handful of hours.” 

Niko’s spine was _very_ straight. 

My eyes flicked over to Loki’s then skittered away after only holding them for a moment. 

“And that explains the rampant destruction,” Stark said. He swiped at the tablet’s screen. Probably scrolling through the Vigil’s many, many love notes on me. “‘Caliban’ is a good name for you. Very fitting. Gotta give your mom credit for that.”

I shrugged a shoulder, but Niko reached into his pocket, pulled out his cellphone and hit speed dial. 

“Samuel,” he said, syllables clipped and hard as a katana blade. “Deal’s off. Send the last payment to the apartment.” He flipped the phone shut with a snap before dear old Sam could get a word off. 

The Avengers stared. Looked at each other like maybe the other person was more clued in, though it was easy enough to determine that something had rubbed my brother the wrong way. The Hulk, Captain America, and Stark’s CEO turned harsh glares on Stark, who looked up from his tablet, seeming to just realize what had come out of his mouth. “Ah….”

All my attention was on Niko. “Nik.”

“ _Cal,_ ” he said, with emphasis, jaw white against his skin, cupping the kitten in one palm. “We’re leaving. Pack up.”

“Over that?” I demanded.

“This was outlined in our initial negotiations. We are entirely within our rights.”

I scowled at him. I wished the goddamn stools had backs. It’s difficult to slouch without a back. So I made do. I planted my feet on his vacated stool. “No.”

Niko pivoted slowly, either to avoid aggravating his ribs or for effect. It was a toss-up. “I can still remove you from that seat without moving my torso.”

“We’re not done here, Niko,” I said.

“It’s no longer our problem.” He advanced one step.

I crossed my ankles and leaned against the bar top. “Until your ribs are healed.”

He quirked an eyebrow. 

I quirked mine in response. “Mr. Hyde here said to rest. Taking a taxi cab across New York in the summer of potholes is _not_ what the good doctor ordered. We’ll leave once you’re done healing.” I shrugged the shoulder that didn’t have a kitten on it. “Besides, I’m having fun.”

Niko considered me, eyes glittering darkly with promises. 

None of the Avengers moved. I don’t even think Stark breathed. 

Finally, Niko nodded. Once. Then he reached down and pinched a nerve in my ankle that made my feet go numb, knocking them off the stool with their own weight. I yelped as the lack of counterbalance nearly made me fall off my own stool. 

Niko reseated himself in the vacated space, glared one last time at the Avengers, and went back to his tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caliban is a character from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and is the half-human son of a witch. His other parent might be the Devil. He’s also pretty much the main antagonist. Needless to say, Niko’s pretty touchy about the name. More here if you want: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliban.
> 
> To the Avengers: I’m so sorry! I’ve made you say terrible things! But I needed it for plot reasons! Everything is done for plot! (Bow down to the plot.)
> 
> I love having family members with medical backgrounds. It makes research so much easier. And yes, I am well aware that if Niko was knocked unconscious for that long with a concussion, he’d be having serious issues right now, but: story/movie-logic hand-waving. I need it for drama. 
> 
> Also, before all you Cal fans lynch me for mucking with the timeline when I said this was pre-everything else and Spartacus can’t possibly be there yet as he showed up in Blackout—ReignStorm has literally been campaigning for undead kittens since we came up with this idea. Seriously. Like, within three hours of the first utterance of the idea. So you can also blame her for that. And I needed a moment to contrast and deflect the high tension a little, and it was funny, and can you imagine six undead kittens running amok in Tony’s workshop? 
> 
> ReignStorm would like suggestions on what JARVIS would call the kittens. She votes for “Deceased Felis catus offspring”
> 
> On that note, ReignStorm is working on a collection of alternative POVs and bonus stories for All Gates. They're awesome, and her current one is really making me reexamine Thor's character a bit. So go check that out! (I'm bringing her over to the dork side, it's a slow but insidious process.)
> 
> The next update will be SLOW, fair warning, as I'm gonna go work on Birds of a Feather now. It's long overdue.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back! WE'RE SO SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT. Grad school is Not To Be Trifled With. Seriously. I'm lucky if I even get reading time before bed. Anywho. Updates will be slow, as I said in my other fic, even with the two of us working on this one as ReignStorm is getting ready to graduate (!!!) and get a job and you know a RL. But! This is NOT, I repeat, NOT abandoned as I HATE not finishing things. It gives me hives and makes me twitchy. 
> 
> ***WARNING***: Spoilers for important plot points of _Nightlife_ (though not the ending) so if you haven't read it and plan to, read at your own risk. All of the spoilers are in the first section so you can simply skip to the first ~*~ if you want to. (Though my backseat writer tells me skipping is not allowed as it might not make sense and is cheating).

At some point, his watcher convinced his brother back to bed by escorting him there. Loki didn’t pay attention, as he was attempting to remove the little fiend from his hair without also removing said hair. It, like many things in his long life, turned out to be an exercise in futility and he resentfully let the little devil-spawn tangle itself in his hair its shriveled heart’s content. It was only then that Loki glanced around Stark’s ludicrously large kitchen and noticed that his watcher was missing. 

He left the breakfast bar without a word to the Avengers and stalked into Stark’s traveling box. “Take me to where he is,” he told JARVIS. The box descended without a sound, and its doors opened to the gun range from several days ago. His watcher was standing in a stall, a pile of guns and ammunition boxes open on the counter before him. Covers were over his ears and his two mummified kittens were happily nestled under his sad excuse for a queue as he emptied his gun down the range. Loki watched his watcher eject the empty magazine, reload, and resume shooting in a single motion as efficient and practical as it was lacking in grace and pretense. A bodily function, something that did not require thought or awareness. 

His watcher went through a box of ammunition before he acknowledged Loki’s presence. “So,” he threw over his shoulder, “did you want to try your hand or are you annoying Stark?”

Loki watched the back of his head. “Auphe?”

His watcher paused, the reaction little more than a stillness Loki might have missed if he hadn’t had his whole being focused on it, then tapped his nose in that infuriating gesture and picked up a new magazine. “Yup. Our own personal boogeymen.” He snapped the new magazine into place and resumed shooting. He glanced back at Loki when he finished emptying it and sighed.

He reloaded and emptied the next magazine before speaking again. Still without turning, leaving Loki only his voice and body language. One of the kittens rolled in its sleep and nearly fell off, digging it claws into his watcher’s shoulder at the last second. His watcher hunched his shoulders slightly, allowing the devil spawn to claw back up even as he put the last rounds in the target. The other kitten’s tail twitched at the movement. 

“I was an experiment. Their most successful one apparently. Fun fact, did you know banshees can possess people? I fucking didn’t.” He tapped a new magazine against the counter. “The Auphe were a dying race. Humans breed like desperate rabbits, and they just couldn’t keep up. So they decided to open a gate to the past to boost their numbers. Except they’re not capable of channeling the power needed, and Darkling couldn’t open gates.” He spread his arms in a _here-I-am_ gesture and reloaded with more force than strictly required. 

Loki narrowed his eyes to slits, searched all over his watcher’s body as he shot the target to tatters for any trace of a lie, or omission, or…in truth, he didn’t really know what he was looking for. But he didn’t find it. His watcher’s body was tense, but no more than it had been in the kitchen and certainly less than his brother. The only conclusion the evidence pointed to was that his watcher was uncomfortable talking about the circumstances of his existence. A being defined by the purpose for which others wanted to use him, who didn’t belong in the world he found himself but which shone with—almost—everything he wanted. 

“I’m not Aesir.”

His watcher paused in the middle of drawing furry ears and large teeth on a new target. 

“Odin found me on the battlefield of their last great war and claimed me, raised me as his own son. He didn’t even tell Thor where I’d come from. And why? Because he thought I might be useful. As a bargaining chip, a puppet, a confidence-booster for Thor. The whole point of my existence in Asgard was a _convenience_.” Loki laughed, because what other reaction was left to him at this point. “I have no idea how that thought even entered his head, to bring home the son of the king of a race of monsters they had battled for centuries.”

His watcher sent the target zipping down the range with a shrug. “Hey, at least your dad didn’t torture you after he kidnapped you.”

No, the Chitauri had taken care of that. Loki sneered. “Right. He just disapproved of everything I ever did—even though he frequently told the both of us that we were born to be kings—allowed the whole of Asgard to scorn and ridicule me, a _prince_ , withheld the truth until I found out on my own and ruined all his plans, and then didn’t even bother trying to save me when it would have mattered most.” A thought occurred to Loki, and he glowered at his watcher’s back. “And you were only kept for part of your life. This was the whole of mine. For _centuries_.”

“Oh please, cry me a river, why dontcha,” his watcher drawled as he ejected the used magazine and picked up another. “You were a prince! You lived in a palace, probably had a bed that would have made ol’ Stark here cry, a mother that at least cared about you enough to visit you in prison and try to help you, money out your nostrils, didn’t fear constantly for your life or sanity.” He slammed the magazine home. “Didn’t lay awake at night wondering what your brother’s life could have been if only you weren’t in it.” He fired brutally at the pristine target.

The rapid percussion of gunfire prevented Loki from being heard but he snarled anyway. “Do not try to speak to me of hardship,” he retorted when the pest had finished. “I had everything I ever thought I was or could be ripped from me, survived a place no physical being ever should, endured a year of torture and experimentation from the one being in the universe not even Death will claim, somehow managed to recobble my consciousness back together after having it invaded and shredded, and to add insult to injury then had to return to my oh so loving family! Do not speak to me of _hardship!_ ”

His watcher tossed the gun aside, turned, and strode right into Loki’s space. His gray eyes were harder than Mjolnir. “Let me ask you something, Houdini. Have you ever let anyone so far into your life that you know you will not exist if they don’t? That you need them to know who you are and why you should bother continuing to struggle through this fucking shithole.”

“Yes,” Loki growled, pushing closer so that his height loomed over his watcher. 

His watcher laughed, genuinely, with snorting, even if there was a dark undertone. It confused Loki.

His watcher slung an arm around Loki’s shoulders. “Come on, man, I think we need a drink.” One of the hell spawn kittens arched its back and scampered over his watcher’s arm to pounce on the one already nesting in his hair. “Pfft, dude, I can not take you seriously with those guys making a mess of your perfect L’Oréal hair. And I had two years of torture, so there.”

 

~*~

 

“It just don’t make sense,” Jane said for the seventeenth time. Darcy had a tally going on a post-it. “I’ve run every test and analysis I can thing of…JARVIS, are you positive there hasn’t been any Bifrost activity in the area?”

“Only fools are positive!” Darcy shouted.

“I am not getting into that again,” Jane responded without looking. 

_“I have not picked up anything on sensors or the news, Dr. Foster. SHIELD has a similar predicament.”_

“But only the Bifrost has energy readings like that!”

“Well, not really,” Darcy interrupted. Jane scrunched her eyebrows at her over the top of the computer she was currently berating. Darcy flapped her phone at the screen closest to her. “I spent months organizing that data. This doesn’t have that…spikey thing…there and…that…other thing, that dip there, the ones that makes it look a unicorn.”

“What?” Jane asked. Darcy would have happily explained her theory on how the energy and flux charts looked like mythological creatures, present boyfriends not included, but Jane was already flipping through their old data, and Darcy knew from long experience that she could explain that she was going to marry an androgynous purple Martian and elope to Asgard to have beautiful Viking babies and bathe in golden chocolate, and her employer and friend would serenely wish her happiness and request an invitation to the wedding. That stopped being funny after the first month. So instead she sipped her mocha and scrolled patiently through tumblr. 

“Damn.” Jane tossed the pile of papers onto the nearest flat surface and ran a frustrated hand through her hair. “This isn’t even like that gravitational anomaly in London. The baseline is somewhat similar but the frequency…” Her head bopped up like it was on a bobble. “Wait! JARVIS! Do you have any scans from the Tesseract’s portal?”

In answer a number of screens popped into existence over Jane’s much beloved instruments. Jane flicked through them, muttering under her breath. She singled out two charts, transferred them to the screen nearest the computer readout and spent the next hour doing what Darcy could have sworn was comparing each individual data point. Darcy left her to it and returned to the task she was supposed to have been doing for the past three hours but which this little surprise had interrupted: translating Jane’s chicken scratch notes from yesterday’s simulation into something the rest of humanity could read. Darcy got no small amount of joy—and never let Jane forget it—from the fact that not even JARVIS with all his fancy algorithms could accurately and consistently translate her notes. 

For a long time, the only sounds in the room were her typing and Jane’s muttering, then Jane shouted in triumph, making Darcy jump so hard she nearly knocked over her coffee. “I was right! That’s amazing. Darcy Darcydarcy, there was a portal opened somewhere nearby. And Thor took the Tesseract home so that means there’s something else here with that ability. Ha, and SHIELD doesn’t have it yet!” The woman did a happy dance around her computer; she never had quite gotten over having SHIELD steal—that damn right was what it was—all her babies. 

Darcy gave her a rock-on sign. Except… “Jane, where was it opened? Cause if that means there’s yet more creepy aliens coming to get us…”

“Oh. Right. Good question.” Jane jabbed her fingers all over the screens, pulling up protocols and algorithms—and Jane was off into Science!land again. Darcy nudged a nutrition shake disguised as an energy drink over to her elbow and turned back to her own work. When she finished the notebook, Jane was still puttering away, scrawling out equations on a screen with a stylus. She had drunk the shake though. Darcy allowed herself a little fist pump behind Jane’s back and went off for another cup of coffee. With whipped cream this time. Oooh, and sprinkles!

She came back to find Jane staring at her equations in horror. “Jane?”

“Darcy...the portal opened in the basement. The basement. Darcy, the _Tower’s basement._ JARVIS!” 

_“Dr. Foster, please calm yourself. There are no intruders in the Tower.”_

“JARVIS, why aren’t you calling the Avengers? This is serious here!”

Darcy snapped her fingers as the lightbulb clicked on. “It’s the pretty boy, isn’t it? The one that looks like an emo Twilight extra. But he don’t glitter.”

Jane was completely flabbergasted—Darcy had always wanted to use that word. “Who?”

_“I believe Ms. Lewis is referring to Mr. Leandros, the contractor SHIELD hired to watch over Mr. Loki during his stay. Specifically, he was hired to retrieve Mr. Loki should he ever skywalk.”_

“Come on, Jane. He’s been here a week. You promised me you’d get out when I was in Boston.”

“I had simulations. And that new data Eric sent over. Wait, how is he supposed to retrieve Loki?”

_“Mr. Leandros has the ability to gate himself wherever he wishes.”_

“Gate. As in…a portal?”

_“Perhaps. I have yet to see any phenomena resembling the Tesseract’s portal, but it does appear to be a different mechanism than Mr. Loki’s skywalking. The energy readings are quite distinct.”_

“You mean you can actually detect it.” Darcy grinned at the camera in the corner. 

“Um…” Jane started in a very small voice. “JARVIS…is Loki…in the tower? Currently? ‘Cause I don’t think this Leandros person is.”

_“No. Mr. Loki is no longer on the premises.”_

Jane groaned into her hands. 

 

~*~

 

Tony was ignoring the world and social niceties by burying himself in a machine, specifically the pieces of the suit that had been damaged defending SHIELD, when Jane called him through the Tower’s intercom. 

“Um, Tony.”

“Okay, now hold sti—oh come on!”

“I am not Butterfingers, Tony. Now listen to me for one minute. Um…Loki might not be in the Tower.”

Tony sat up straight, Butterfingers forgotten as it waved its magnifying glass in front of his face. “Come again?”

“My instruments picked up energy readings that indicate a portal was opened in the Tower’s basement. Darcy and JARVIS seem to think that was…what’s his name again?”

“Cal,” Darcy supplied cheerfully. “Like Calvin Klein.”

“Who? Whatever, this Cal person. And JARVIS says that Loki probably went with him?”

Tony thunked his head on the worktable. “Great. Good. Wonderful. Anything else you care to share?”

“….they may have been gone for an hour and a half.”

“JARVIS? Anything you care to share?”

_“I was aware of their leaving. Mr. Leandros assured me that they would be back by 3:00pm”_ —Tony checked the digital floating on the wall: 2:37— _“and if any violence should arise, they would gate back immediately. Mr. Loki’s signal has not moved from the first location Mr. Leandros gated them to.”_

“Aaaand that is?”

 

~*~

 

Five minutes later, Tony stomped into the kitchen in the suit. “Your brother’s done it again.”

Niko ignored him. The rest of the table’s occupants looked up quizzically, eyeing the suit. 

“Look, I already apologized, alright? For like ten minutes this morning! And had to sit through another of Pepper’s lectures on mental filters and PR. What more do you want?”

Niko ate a carrot in a very disturbing manner. Tony resorted to his trump card.

“Pep,” he implored. 

She shrugged. “Not my department anymore, Tony. I’m your CEO now. You get to fix your own messes.” She considered that statement. “To a point. And you’d better have a good reason for scratching up the floor.” 

“Loki. The punk made good on his threat to take Loki into the city.” That got the team’s attention. 

“You know,” Clint mused, “I’m not really seeing how this situation is supposed to be better than having him unsupervised.” Nat snorted and returned to her soup. 

Steve pushed away from the table. “Do you know where?”

“Funny story, that. I asked JARVIS that very question, and do you know what my AI said to me? There was a ‘glitch’ in the system. ‘Technical difficulties.’ _My_ AI.” A phone rang. Tony talked over it. It wasn’t his phone so it wasn’t for him and this was JARVIS refusing to give him necessary information. That sentiment changed drastically when he heard Niko say, “How long has he been there?”

He whipped around toward the man. “Where are they?”

“No, I can take care of it,” Niko said into the phone. His jaw clenched. “I’ll take care of it. Be there in ten.” He snapped the phone shut, rose from his seat as if he had recovered overnight from being smashed into a building, and brushed past Tony with an air as cold as the Ice Age. Yup, Tony was going to be living this one down for a long time. 

Not that Tony particularly cared at the moment. He grabbed Niko’s arm. “Where _are_ they?”

“It is no concern of yours.”

“With all due respect,” Steve said, “this is more than just your brother. Loki is with him, and that makes it our business too.”

Niko said nothing for a good five minutes, staring them all down like he would happily set them on fire. Clint reached casually for a pocket. Finally, “Dr. Banner may come.”

Bruce startled. “Me? Why me?”

Tony jerked with a yelp. Niko had fucking Vulcan nerve-pinched his hand! Niko resumed walking towards the stairs. 

“You are the person best able to stop Loki if he gets going,” Steve told Bruce.

“As well as Manhattan,” Bruce added. 

Clint tossed him an earpiece. “We’ll be right behind you.”

Bruce caught the earpiece with a sigh and hurried after Niko.

 

~*~

 

Niko walked through the door of the Ninth Circle to be greeted with Ishiah’s scowling face. “Get them out of here. They’re driving down business.”

Niko quirked a brow and looked around the bar. It was indeed less crowded than usual at only half the typical number of patrons, but it was not what Niko would term ‘empty.’ However, everyone, even the handful of Kin wolves, were giving the far corner a wide berth. He glanced to the side. “Dr. Banner?” The doctor looked rattled but took a deep breath and nodded. Niko nodded back and strode for the corner, the patrons parting for him like the Red Sea.

“Cyrano!” Cal called, slouched in his chair with the mummified kittens still playing in his hair. “Join us!” He raised a beer bottle. “We’re drinking to shitty fathers and shitty families.” To demonstrate, he took a long pull, then he frowned. “Wait a minute, weren’t you supposed to be in a nice fluffy bed dreaming ninja dreams?” 

Niko counted the number of empty bottles on the table then assessed his brother. Contrary to the evidence, Cal was only buzzed. One of the knots in his stomach slowly eased. However, that did leave only one other possibility. 

Dr. Banner stepped up gingerly beside him, giving the pair of dullahans as wide a berth as possible, and peered into the corner. “Loki?”

The figure farthest in the corner flicked his eyes up from where he was slumped, chin resting on his chest. In the dim lighting it was difficult to determine, but Niko was confident that his pupils were significantly dilated. “Ah, finally come to drag me back to my sentence?”

Dr. Banner made his own assessment of the table. “What have you had to drink? Nothing on Earth has gotten Thor drunk and believe me, Clint and Tony have tried.”

In response Loki picked up an unmarked bottle and poured a golden liquid into a cup. Setting the bottle down with exacting care, he then downed the cup in one go. 

Cal cackled and leaned in conspiratorially. “I want to sic him on Robin. Can you imagine that drinking contest? Fucking priceless!”

“You will do no such thing,” Ishiah ordered from across the room before Niko had a chance to veto that absurd suggestion. 

“Aaaawww, Ish, why—”

“’Cause it will be _me_ who will have to clean up his drunken ass.”

Cal made a lewd comment that did not necessitate repeating. Ishiah ignored him and glared pointedly at Niko. Niko for his part ignored him and pulled out one of the two empty chairs at the table and sat down, staring at his younger brother. It had proven to be the most effective tactic in his repertoire. 

Cal took another pull of beer. “I’m fine, Nik.”

“Not from where I’m sitting.”

Cal said nothing to that. 

“Um,” Dr. Banner said as he dropped into the last chair, “what _is_ going on here? You gated Loki out of the tower to go get drunk?”

Cal glowered at the man. “Not all of us get to live in swanky mansions with a steady job. My life hasn’t exactly been sunshine and roses, alright? Houdini and I found we had that in common.”

“Neither has mine,” Dr. Banner replied. 

Cal squinted at him. Loki leaned an elbow on the tabletop and rested his chin on the back of his hand, glittering eyes locked on the doctor. “Barton told me about you.” Dr. Banner returned his stare. “Years running and hiding from those you once called friends, who wanted to burn you for nothing more than what you were. Something that you had no control over, and which you didn’t even understand. Years spent terrified of what you might do, terrified of what you are.” Loki’s eyes bored into Dr. Banner’s like they might hold the secrets of the universe. “How did you crawl from there to here?”

“I don’t know.” Dr. Banner took his glasses off and cleaned them on his shirt hem. “Tony has something to do with it.”

Loki flopped back into his chair with a snort. “That arrogant metallurgist couldn’t find his way out of the dark if he had a star in his hand.”

Dr. Banner winced. “Tony is not perfect, no, but he’s…not irredeemable either.”

“Oh really,” Loki drawled, slamming back another cup. “And by what metric are you measuring, Doctor? To what golden, unattainable ideals are you holding him to?” 

“Fuck that shit,” Cal cheered into his bottle. 

Dr. Banner glanced between the two. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

Loki laughed darkly into his cup. “And that, my dear enemy, is the crux of the problem.” He clicked his glass with Cal’s bottle and they both drained their drink. 

Niko stared more intensely at Cal’s face, searching for any of his tells. Cal was doing much better than he had been four years ago. He knew his own reaction to Stark’s comment might have been overly much—it was a sensitivity he had no intention of dulling—but Cal should not have been in a place that warranted this response. Especially now that the Auphe were dead. 

Cal tapped his empty bottle against his shoulder. “Really, Cyrano—” Niko hardened his jaw at his younger brother, daring him to finish that sentence. Cal, not being an idiot all the time, wisely reconsidered and pouted like the child he was. “Fine. Give me a day. I’ll get over it.” He propped his feet on the table. “Did you call back Sam-I-am?”

“…Yes.”

“Good boy.”

Ishiah flung a trash bag onto the table, scowling at everyone but Niko especially. “Clean up your mess then get the fuck out of my bar before I fucking show my boot down your nostrils. And get those sorry excuse for shoes off my table before I set them on fire! I don’t even want to know what they’ve kicked.”

“Aw, Ish, you know you love me.”

“I love you as far as I can whack you. Now leave before blood ends up on my floor. _Again.”_

Cal sighed, but swung his feet off the table and started tossing bottles into the bag. “It wouldn’t have been that violent!” he yelled after the steaming peri. “Just a couple of broken fingers, maybe a nose. Don’t give me that look, Nik, of course I noticed the wolves getting ansty.” 

“I was uncertain your observational skills would survive their drowning.”

“Har har. Houdini, pick up your share.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and your continued patience! And comments (ReignStorm).


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back!
> 
> Sorry for the long wait and thanks for all your patience. Now that the semester has finished and I no longer have conferences looming, I can finally get writing done. This chapter went through so many rewrites, it's nice to finally get it posted.

Instead of gating back to the tower, we hopped a ride with Niko and the Hulk, outwardly because Niko obviously could not be trusted when he was injured, which was true, obviously—but mostly because I had never gated while buzzed, wasn’t sure what would happen, and had no desire to find myself halfway through a wall. I mean, come on, you only have to watch one cheesy fantasy movie with girls in skimpy clothing to realize that transporting yourself magically while high is a Bad Idea. I’m only a reckless idiot when the situation calls for it. The rest of the time, I like my head where it is, thanks very much.

Loki sat by the window and watched New York slide by. He had laid into the alcohol like a champ, but his crazy alien metabolism made him only drunk enough for his guard to be considering whether to lower the portcullis or fart in its general direction. And it couldn’t make up its fucking mind. One moment he was the emo-emo to ever emo emoting that emo all over anyone even remoting in the vicinity, and the next he might as well have been RoboCop. Though I suppose that just made him more entertaining. I already knew Niko wasn’t much for casual conversation, and apparently neither was the Hulk, so it was up to Houdini and I to liven the car ride with a running commentary on passing pedestrians. The Hulk watched us like he’d never seen a friendly debate before.

That friendly debate continued straight into the tower’s parking garage, where we hurled our opinions of the other’s intelligence over the roof of the car. I was enjoying myself until a small little woman blocked my path to the elevator. 

“Cal?” she asked. 

“Depends.”

“Great!” She grabbed my arm and attempted to tow me away from the elevator and down the hall. “I need to run some tests. Did you know your gates are 78% similar to an Einstein-Rosen bridge? This could be the missing link!”

Abso-fucking-lutely not. I dug my heels into the linoleum. “I am not your lab rat.”

“What?”

I stalked back to the elevator. “Listen, lady, I refuse to sit around for hours in my underwear and let you poke me with shocky things just so you can discover things for ‘science.’” I jabbed the button and glared over my shoulder at her, very aware that my grey eyes were much lighter than my hair and that their glare from beneath the black strands could be labeled ‘disturbing.’ “I am not your fucking lab rat.”

The elevator took that opportune moment to arrive and I got on, dragging Houdini behind me. Niko gave me a disapproving me but got on as well when the scientist stubbornly did. The Hulk took one look, waved cheerily, and stepped back as the doors closed. 

“I didn’t mean to offend you or insinuate that you have no self-autonomy,” the scientist said as the elevator started up. I eyed the button labeled ‘Ludicrous Speed’, which had been written over with ‘EJECTOR SYSTEM’ in angry red caps, wanting very much to punch it as many times as possible. Sadly, it appeared to need a key. “I get it,” the scientist continued. “Asgard doesn’t think much of mortals’ intelligence. The whole time I was there, there were maybe three people who didn’t act condescending. You were one of those. Surprisingly,” she added, pointing to Houdini.

Loki arched an elegant brow. “May I remind you that it was through your understanding of Yggdrasil, an entity Midgardians are not supposed to be aware of yet, that ultimately allowed Thor to kill Malekith? You have a heart of fire and eyes filled with stars, Dr. Foster, and you have managed a great deal with limited resources and persistent obstacles. As far as I am concerned, the only blot on your intelligence is your continued infatuation with my brother.”

Foster blinked. “Oh. That might be one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me.”

Loki snorted. “Then my brother is obviously not working hard enough.”

Foster merely hummed, looking thoughtful. Then she shook herself and turned back to me. “Anyway, I just wanted to say I get it, and I’m sorry. I love my research as my own baby and sometimes I can get a little single-minded about it. You don’t have to sit around the lab for me to take measurements. Would you consent to JARVIS taking data if you happen to gate in the building? My instruments are already hooked up to his intranet and everything. But it feels like an invasion of privacy if I just start taking data without letting you know first. That’s actually what I wanted to talk about, sorry for trying to drag you around.”

The doors opened onto the common floor.

“Hold that thought,” I said, holding up a finger, and made a beeline for the fridge. I hadn’t eaten anything but peanuts and pretzels since breakfast—which come to think of it, I didn’t get to eat, so naturally my stomach was a throwing the tantrum of the year. 

Thor was already in the kitchen, dumping a third box of pop tarts into a large salad bowl. He turned with a gigawatt smile at our footsteps. That smile froze when he spotted Foster behind me. His hands tensed around the pop tart box, and he straightened his spine, not even trying to be subtle—not that I’m even sure he was capable of that feat—as he cased the kitchen. Oh this should be good. I settled back on my heels and said sweetly, “Yes?”

Thor carefully put down the box. “May I inquire what your intentions are sharing space with my Jane?”

“What the…?” My Jane said. “Thor, I was the one that followed them onto the elevator.”

Thor smiled at His Jane but turned back to face me. “I find your proximity mildly distressing, what with…” he paused, apparently trying to find a delicate phrasing. I watched his gears turn with amusement. “…your parentage.”

Really? That was the best he could do? I rolled my eyes at Niko, who had his own narrowed at the alien and a hand twitching. But before Niko got a chance to stab an alien Norse godling or I could deliver my review, someone else stepped in. 

“Excuse me?” Loki said quietly, coming flush with the breakfast bar. “Would you care to repeat that, _brother?”_

Thor winced. “I meant no disrespect, truly, but—”

“But what, Thor? But he comes from a mindless race of bloodthirsty beasts and thus cannot be trusted?”

Niko moved on both of the godlings, mouth thin as a papercut, but I jabbed my foot into his shin before he could get too far. He transferred the scathing glare to me but stayed put, twiddling with the knife that had dropped out of his sleeve.

“Brother, that is not—”

“By Hel it isn’t!” Loki spat. “This is why Mother doesn’t allow you to talk in court, you great oaf! You’re incapable of keeping your thoughts to yourself, and you don’t seem to grasp that alliances hinge on polite lies and compromise. But let’s ignore the weak control of your tongue for the moment, shall we? How about we look at the fact that you haven’t even seemed to learn how to _think_ beyond a handful of ancient facts? Yes, the auphe took any excuse for a good blood bath. Yes, the auphe were uncontrollable and vicious. But take a look around, you blind imbecile. Do you see any auphe about?”

Thor stared. “By the Norns. Loki, are you drunk?”

Loki steamrolled right over him. “No! Because there aren’t any! Which you would know if you _deigned_ to look around and notice the mortals actually appear to be thriving and not cowering in fear of the dark. Did you even _notice_ that none of your precious Avengers even knew what they were? _Logical_ conclusion: they’re not here anymore!

“You’ve been living with Cal for the past week and had no quarrel with him, but then you learn one fact about him, and now, oh now suddenly he is dangerous and cannot be trusted? You have learned nothing! That little banishment taught you nothing!”

“That is not true!”

“Three days!” Loki shouted back. “You were here for three days! And the minute you were in serious peril, Mjolnir came flying right back! That wasn’t _banishment,_ that was coddling!”

“You killed me!” Thor bellowed.

“And you want to know why? You want to know why, Thor? Because you apologized for ‘whatever you did’. You had no idea what you had done wrong, what had led to us being where we were. _You weren’t learning._ You were just being the _Golden Boy,_ noble in the defense of civilians and wanting forgiveness so you could forget all about it and go back to being golden and perfect. Cal has suffered more than you have the capacity to imagine and there you sit on your little golden throne ready to judge him for one fact that is entirely out of his control. He is not to blame for his parentage, just as you are assuredly not a prince from merit.” Loki stormed out of the room without a backward glance. 

I waited a moment then whistled into the silence. “Damn. I need to get him drunk more often.” I slapped Thor on the shoulder as I walked by to get to the fridge. “Touch luck, Conan.”

Niko huffed and finally put the knife away.

The mighty Thor looked very much like someone had dropped Olympus on his head—yes, yes, wrong country, I’m aware, who cares, it’s funny—and he wasn’t sure if he should still be angry at them or in pain. Jane bit her lip, glanced at the elevator, then made her way around the breakfast bar to fit her hand through Thor’s arm. “Come on, Thor, grab your pop tarts and let’s go to the roof. Cal, please think about it, okay?”

~*~

After dinner, the Avengers gathered in their unofficial meeting room. It was unofficial because the official one was down a few floors and SHIELD designated, and Tony, who somehow always seemed to be the one instigating it, was both lazy and loved sticking it to SHIELD whenever possible. In this case, Bruce agreed with him. It had only been a year since he’s stopped running after all, and all the distrust built up around organizations like SHIELD was going to take a long time to dissipate, if it ever did. And besides, the rec room had much comfier chairs. 

“So,” Tony said, flopping as gracelessly as humanly possible into one of said chairs, “dish.”

Bruce looked at him quizzically as he took his own seat. “About what?”

“The bar! What the hell is a paien bar _like?_ Do they even serve normal alcohol?”

“I have to admit I’m curious too,” Steve said. 

“Well, as Cal was drinking Heineken, my assumption is yes, they do serve normal alcohol,” Bruce replied, setting his used tea bag aside.

Thor frowned. “I have tasted this Kin of Heine and it is not powerful enough to get my brother as drunk as he was.”

Clint flipped over the back of a couch. “That was Loki being drunk? He wasn’t even slurring his words!” He plopped his feet into Natasha’s lap. She considered them for a moment then gave him the side eye. The archer beamed at her. Bruce noticed she didn’t remove them.

“No,” Thor allowed, “but he was certainly more inebriated than I have seen him in public for more than three hundred years.”

Bruce shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. His bottle was unmarked. It certainly smelled strong.”

“And what about the patrons?” Tony asked.

Bruce winced. “Ah…definitely not normal. There were a group of what Niko labeled Kin Wolves at one table. Cal called them ‘inbred mangy mutts.’ I suppose with their hoods up and in the right light you could mistake them for slightly disfigured humans.” He pointed to his jaw at Natasha’s questioning look. “Kinda had a half-muzzle thing going on. Very large teeth. Ah…there were some headless horsemen.”

Tony choked on his scotch.

“Yeah, I found that…difficult. The bartender looked perfectly human, but I have no evidence that he actually was. Besides that, there was what looked like a zombie in the corner, and an eight-limbed little girl at the bar. Well, she looked like a little girl. According to the bartender, Cal and Loki’s presence was driving down business, so I’m guessing there are usually more.”

“I told you,” Clint grumbled into the disturbed silence. “Fucking fairy tales.”

Steve gave himself a little shake. “Yes, well, let’s go over the intel.”

“Yeah, about that,” Tony interjected. “I object to being called a metallurgist. In fact, I resent it. I am not a glorified chemist!”

Bruce hid a smile behind his mug while Natasha rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, you’re the god of electronics, Tony, I’m sure we’re all aware. JARVIS, if you would, please.” The TV screen lit up with the transcript from Bruce’s ear piece. A few of Loki’s comments were highlighted. “There are the bits that are of most interest to me. Any insights, Thor?”

Thor squinted at the screen, then grimaced and emptied his drink. 

“Thor,” Natasha prompted in her politely patient voice. 

Thor sighed into his pint glass. “I cannot say as to their origin, and, as has been forcibly pointed out to me today, I am not the clearest observer of things, but…Loki, particularly in the last few centuries, has not been happy in Asgard. In truth, his predicament is very similar to that of Lord Hiccup.”

Bruce blinked. “From _How to Train Your Dragon?”_

Thor nodded. “There are many similarities between Berk and Asgard, and like Lord Hiccup, Loki was…different. He preferred knives to swords. Agility to strength. Magic to battle. To mince words instead of blades. Nearly everyone around him took exception to that in one way or another. I personally did not notice the majority of it and paid no mind to what little I did until our altercation on the Bifrost, a guilt for which he will probably never forgive me.” Staring at the far wall, Thor swiped his thumb across his mouth in thought. “Speaking honestly, I think that Loki would have been happier in a world such as yours, where everything changes within the century and is so bright and loud.”

Bruce couldn’t help but think that that sounded an awful lot like—“Me,” Tony said, swinging his legs over the side of his chair and taking a generous swig. “Loki is your version of me, sounds like, since from what I’ve heard from Foster, Asgard is encased in gold, dreadfully dull, and full of people who don’t really question why things are the way they are.”

“In my people’s defense,” Thor rumbled, “many of the questions you would ask us about science and technology, we have already long discovered.”

“Not the point, big guy. I’m not talking about facts, I’m talking about a behavioral pattern, a mental space, a way of being, if you will. You don’t just question in science, you question everywhere. Can I put three boiled eggs in my mouth at once—the answer is yes, by the way—is it possible to make a personal jet pack, should I stop making weapons, who is it safe to trust, what is the point of my existence.” Tony’s eyes bored into Thor. “The point, Point Break, is that no one in Asgard questions _anything_. Foster was telling me about your little quantum field generator and how surprised the doctor was that she understood the principles. And when your daddy came in and called her a goat, no one really questioned that either. Asgard has beliefs about us mortals—beliefs that you made a thousand years ago, and don’t you think you should have realized by now that humans change fucking quickly?—but nah, we don’t need to question that. It’s just an entire _species_ we’re disparaging, no biggie.”

Thor actually flinched at that, jaw working, but after a moment he smiled almost sadly at Tony. “You would have got on well with my brother in his younger days, friend Stark.”

Bruce found Tony’s miffed face highly amusing. 

Natasha tapped her knee with a finger, reclaiming the conversation. “If we continue this line of thought, then currently, Loki is you, Stark, around your 36th birthday.”

Tony downed his scotch. “Yeahhhh…I was deliberately not going there.”

Steve frowned. “What happened on your 36th birthday?”

“Ah ah ah!” Tony shouted, wagging his finger at Natasha. “You don’t get to answer that. God knows what your analysis will be like, all pyscho-mumbo-jumbo and compensatory SHIELD one-ups. That was the year the arc reactor was killing me and I thought that was going to be my last birthday. I went a bit crazy at it.”

Natasha inspected her nails. “You’re forgetting to mention you also smashed your mansion and nearly got all your guests and Pepper killed when you and Colonel Rhodes decided to duke it out in the living room.”

Tony grunted. 

Steve looked wildly between Natasha, Tony, and Thor. “Wait wait wait. Are you saying that Loki’s on some kind of self-destructive rampage right now?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Capiscle.”

“Not a full on rampage, no,” Bruce said over Tony. “But a downward spiral, yes. His eyes in the bar looked like mine did before my trip to the Artic.”

“Loki is not suicidal,” Clint interjected. “Fucker’s too fucked up to even consider it.”

“He…has already tried it,” Thor said. 

They all looked at him, though Bruce was trying hard to be surprised by the information. Thor rubbed the back of his neck and wouldn’t meet their eyes. “Our altercation on the Bifrost. I had to destroy it to stop it from destroying Jotunheim, and in the blast we got thrown off. My father managed to catch us, but Loki…decided to let go instead. That was how Thanos got a hold of him.”

Natasha drummed her fingers on Clint’s calf.

Steve’s brow was furrowed something fierce. “From the recording,” he said carefully, “it seemed like Cal seems to get most of what Loki was talking about.”

“Yeah,” Tony said as he heaved himself out of his chair, “there’s another fucker questioning his existence if I ever saw one.” He poured himself another glass.

“Questioned,” Bruce corrected. “From the interactions I’ve seen, I think Cal has come to peace with what he is and where he fits in the world. You saw how he was at breakfast. Niko was the one who reacted. Cal barely batted an eyelash at it.”

“At peace or inured?” Natasha murmured. 

“At peace. It wasn’t just this morning. He’s been making comments about his monster DNA since he arrived and appears perfectly comfortable using his abilities.”

Interestingly, that last comment made Thor fidget in his seat. Eyeing him, Bruce filed that away in the mental folder he was slowly compiling. 

~*~

After the meeting, Tony followed Bruce into the elevator. The man was silent through dropping Steve off and for ten floors after, swishing his scotch around the glass like it contained the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

“Did you mean what you said?” he finally asked. “About me being redeemable.”

Bruce glanced at him. “Yeah. Not in the way Loki took it. I know just how messed up society is too, and practically everything is unattainable the way we would like it to be, but you try, Tony. So yeah.”

Tony nodded and got off at his workshop, still swishing the scotch.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI!!! It's been 5 months, here's a new chapter.
> 
> Enjoy

_“Good morning, Mr. Leandros,”_ Jarvy said from the ceiling. I just rolled over and shoved my face into the pillow. _“Mr. Leandros, Sr., has asked me to inform you that the first batch of pancakes is ready for consumption.”_

I shoved myself off the pillow. “Damn ninja is going to throw his creaky back out. Houdini! Up and at ‘em!”

Loki just groaned and pulled the covers over his head.

_“If you would allow me, Mr. Loki, Mr. Stark keeps several hangover remedies in the bar.”_

“This would not be an issue if you just allowed me my magic,” the godling grumped.

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, yes, the sufferings of the boringly mundane, so tragic, now get your ass up.”

I stomped out of our room, fully intending to tear my darling brother a new one, then happened to catch a whiff when the elevator opened on the common floor. I paused. Stalked down the hall to the kitchen. “Chocolate and butterscotch?”

“Stark happened to have them.”

Niko, the bane of all foods good and unhealthy for you, was making me chocolate and butterscotch chip pancakes, with real butter and fake maple syrup. I decided to accept the gesture for what it was and settled for glaring at his back pointedly from the breakfast bar.

Houdini staggered with as much alien dignity as he could muster—which was a lot, considering—to the bar Jarvy had pointed out and started ruffling through it. Niko set a cup of herbal water down for him after bringing me my stack of caloric heaven on a platter.

“After this, you’re going back to bed,” I said, tucking in. Niko said nothing and we both pretended that was a yes.

Stark stumbled into the kitchen, eyes barely open, apparently making his way to the kitchen by feel and memory. His memory must not have been very good as he ran into the breakfast bar. He pried his eyes open to stare at it uncomprehendingly then glanced around, blinking when he saw me, eating my pancakes with a spoon to make sure I got the maximum melted chocolate goodness to fluffy pancake ratio and thoroughly enjoying the spectacle of the genius billionaire in his natural state.

“Ah, the punk,” he muttered, still unfocused gaze fixed somewhere around my hairline. “Just so you’re aware, I’m not going to waste breath apologizing to you about yesterday, no matter how much Pepper natters or your evil brother glares.” Niko was doing just that. I waved my spoon at him. Stark obviously had no idea he was even in the room and I wanted to see where this went. “’Cause you obviously don’t give a shit either way, so what would be the point anyway, and I’m an engineer, I make decisions based on the information I have at the time, and I make no apologies for those decisions. ‘Caliban’ is an apt descriptor of your situation and your mother had a grasp of irony.”

I shrugged and scooped up more melted butterscotch. “I think so too. Chill, Nik,” I added when Cyrano looked at me. “I’m not going to insist on Caliban again.”

On my other side, Houdini was staring at Stark with slightly wide eyes like he’d never seen him before in his long alien life, and his hands were clutching at his mug. 

Stark nodded at me, grabbed a whole bag of onion bagels and three tubs of cream cheese, all in ridiculous flavors—seriously, who even _made_ olive tomato cream cheese?—and shuffled back to the elevator, still without noticing that there were other people in the room.

 

~*~

 

Thor hide himself around a corner as Tony reentered the elevator. He had managed to go nearly the entire meal without anyone in the kitchen sensing his presence and while the Man of Iron was not at his most observant after having spent the night in his smithy, Thor wasn’t taking any chances. The events of yesterday had shown that a new approach was required, so Thor was attempting to take a page from his brother’s book and trying stealth.

It was much easier in the woods.

Still, he had gathered some interesting knowledge of the two mercenaries Director Fury had hired to watch Loki. Niko, while quick to take offense and sometimes irrational, could be reasoned with, and the skywalker would not fly into a rage at the slightest hint of insult. Loki still acted half-dead when hungover.

That last made an ache bloom in his chest.

The skywalker shoveled another stake of cakes of pan into his mouth, his older brother not bothering to mask his disgust but also not saying anything. Loki hunched over the counter, grimacing into his cup of tea.

A sopping piece of cake hit Loki on the cheek.

Both Loki and Thor looked to the skywalker, who was holding a spoon with another piece loaded and cocked between his hands. “Come on, Houdini, it’s just a headache. Stop acting like the whole universe is squatting on your head.”

Loki’s eyes smoldered over his cup. “I would have more cause to know what that feels like than—”

The second piece hit Loki across the mouth.

The two of them stared at each other. The skywalker smirked as syrup dripped off Loki’s chin. Thor jerked forward when Loki sprang out of his seat, but the skywalker was no longer there, appearing instead near the door, _taunting_. Loki snarled and the two of them disappeared down the hall.

Niko rolled his eyes at their fading footsteps and started gathering dishes. “Are you going to skulk all day?”

Thor startled. He thought he’d been doing well! Not even Loki had sensed his presence.

Niko turned to the sink, starting the water. “You can start by picking up your brother’s cup.”

Thor shuffled slowly into the kitchen, eyeing Niko. “How do you do it?” he asked finally.

Niko glanced over at him as he rolled his up sleeves. “Grasp the handle with your hand and lift. It’s not terribly difficult.”

Thor shook his head with a slight huff, picking up the cup “You’re actually just as rude, aren’t you?”

“That’s what happens when you grow up with someone. You pick up mannerisms. Especially when you’re the only thing keeping each other alive.” Niko delivered a flat stare over the sink. “Let me make one thing clear, Odinson, Cal is my brother and I will protect him before anything else.”

The cup cracked in Thor’s hands. “The auphe are a scourge. Indiscriminate killers and plunderers.”

Nothing changed overtly in Niko’s stance, but Thor knew a blade when he saw one. 

“Cal is not a monster. He is my brother.”

 

~*~

 

There were times I really hated this babysitting job. This was definitely one of them.

After a hard day of boredom since Things One and Two still wouldn’t let me fly the alien hover car—apparently Niko had called early before making the pancakes and scared them half to death—I was looking forward to my fourteen hours, and it was goddamn beautiful, until that fucking bloody alarm went up. 

I could have happily killed someone.

Houdini must have shared that sentiment from the dark curses being muttered under the blankets.

I stuffed a pillow over my head and clamped my whole arm down on it. Sound was pressure, right? So I could just over-pressure it out, right? Right?

 _“Hydra agents have allied with Dr. Doom and are currently attacking SHIELD HQ,”_ Jarvy informed us. _“Your assistance is required.”_

“Fuck that! We spent the whole fucking day there! I’m not doing any more!”

_“Unfortunately, as per the new clause in your consultant contract, you can be called on as first responders when the situation calls for it, regardless of work hours. The current circumstances fit the contract criteria.”_

I debated furiously with myself for several long minutes before throwing everything off the bed in a fit of pique. “Fine. Then let’s get to the fight so I can kick some bloody fucking ass. Houdini, up! I need to punch something, do not let it be you.” Houdini glared at me and curled tighter into a ball as I snagged my duffel bag. I simply grabbed his ankle and gated us both to HQ, dumping his lazy ass on the lawn.

People immediately started shooting at us. I fired back while Loki flipped himself behind an overturned car.

“Fantastic planning!” he snarled. “My magic is still sealed and I have no weapon!” I tossed him the first gun that came to hand from my duffel. He rolled his eyes like an angsty fifteen-year-old but braced the gun on the car and went to town, mowing down a line of Hydra goons.

Yeah, we had definitely been woken on the wrong side of the bed.

This was helping, though.

The lawn was roiling with activity. The annoying cloaked robots were once again trying to dig their way through the lawn to the corpse storage. SHIELD hadn’t managed to completely fill in the first hole, which was really just sloppy of them, so the robots were well below my line of sight. The Hydra goons had set up a sort of barricade around them formed from weapons crates and overturned cars from the damaged parking garage and were keeping the SHIELD agents occupied enough that the doombots had free reign. Most of the goons were being cowardly meerkats and staying behind the barricade, but one dude was just sauntering all over the lawn, dispatching any agent that got within range and providing cover as goons repaired breaches. He looked like some kind of walking weapons arsenal, with guns stuck to his back and knives strapped everywhere else, not to mention all the little grenades tucked places. And his getup just got weirder from there: some kind of mask covered the lower half of his face like he expected to get gassed at any point, and his arm was fucking shiny. Like, _really_ shiny. It was the middle of the night, sure, but SHIELD had spot lights up and that thing was practically a disco ball under them.

I cursed and ducked behind a car as a bullet grazed my calf. See, this is why you don’t drag me out of my bed straight into a fight. I have no attention whatso-fucking-ever because I was _sleeping_ a moment ago. 

Loki didn’t spare me a glance as I peered down at my leg. Mech, it was just a scratch. I ripped a strip from my t-shirt for a quick field bandage, then grabbed my Desert Eagle and two magazines from my duffel and gated myself into the doombots’ midst. 

I was working my frustrations out on them—watching their heads explode into millions of tiny pieces was hugely satisfying—when a quinjet zoomed overhead and Tin Man plopped down next to me.

“Hey, punk,” he said through the suit’s speakers, sounding way too awake. Knowing the idiot genius, he probably hadn’t ever gone to bed and had caffeine seeping out his pores. Probably a good thing he was in the suit. I’m sure the air around him would have been radioactive otherwise. “Try to save some of their good bits, I need new toys.”

The Hulk dropped down practically on top of him and started smashing the robots to smithereens.

“Goddamn it!” Stark yelled. “Every single time! Fine! I didn’t want to play here anyway.” And he zoomed off. 

With the way the Hulk was going at it, I didn’t really think I wanted to be there either, so I gated myself back up to the lawn and immediately ducked as a gloved hand went for my face. It was the guy with the shiny arm, and he was currently fighting both Black Widow and Captain America, a fight which unfortunately now seemed to include me as he seemed to take my appearing in his bubble rather personally. Touchy-touchy. 

Holy shit, that shiny arm was _metal._

Widow was doing some strange octopus move to keep his hands busy while Captain America tried to take his legs out with a foot sweep. Mr. Sparkle Sparkle just jump-roped it, pried Black Widow off by turning the jump into the nearest flipped car and came straight at me. 

I shot him in the face. 

Because Captain America, never say never, was punching his shield into the shiny arm, he didn’t have enough grace to fully dodge. The bullet scraped his head gear and made him stumble out of Captain America’s range. Well, it damn well should have. That was my Desert Eagle. What the hell was that mask made of, titanium? Ha, now it was falling off. I win!

Captain America froze. “Bucky?”

The guy punched him in the face.

Oh, that had to hurt. He’d used the metal arm. 

Still, this was an interesting development. Better than cable. But Widow seemed to have been impaled through the shoulder with something and a tank of guy like that was not going to go down easy. So I gated him away.

The two Avengers stared at me, Widow blandy and Captain still a little shell-shocked. “What did you do with him?” he asked. “Where is he?”

“He’s at the bottom of the Atlantic.”

_“What?!”_

“Relax, I’ll bring him back in…” I glanced at my naked wrist. “Eh…seventy seconds.”

I shot the last two Hydra goons while waiting.

I fetched him back. That fishy-briny-hovering-between-pleasant-unpleasant sea smell swamped the whole area, making me sneeze. And he was still awake. And still aware enough to try to take a swing at me. A very weak, stumbling swing, but still. Back he went. “Not done yet,” I told Captain America. 

SHIELD agents started canvassing the lawn, triaging fellow agents and carting off Hydra goons. One came over to check Black Widow’s shoulder. Looked like a nice clean through-and-through. The she-ssasin only allowed a light bandaging before she hobbled over to the hole to do some weird thing with the Hulk. SHIELD really need to get that hole filled. Seriously. Leaving it like that was just asking for it. 

“Mister. Leandros,” Captain America gritted.

Loki teleported next to me and dangled his broken gun in my face. “Your ‘device’ does not handle stress well when applied to the Midgardian cheekbone.”

_“Mr. Leandros!”_

“Fine, fine, don’t get your spangled panties all in a wad, I’m getting him.”

This time Mr. Sparklies was unconscious. Fucking finally. I gave him a decent kick in the back to encourage the water out of his lungs. Captain America seems to suffer a stroke. 

I looked at the nearest SHIELD agent. “You guys got any superman cuffs? Guy’s got a metal arm.”

The SHIELD agent rolled his eyes. “Superman isn’t real.”

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